A Woman's Best Friend
by PheonRen
Summary: War erupts between witches and vampires, and Alcide must go into hiding. He discovers sanctuary, but has he brought danger to the one person he would most wish to protect? M/F Alcide/OC
1. Surgery

_I know True Blood is a vampire show, but I really like Alcide and I think he needs some love. Of course, he doesn't seem very popular on here, so I guess I'll write for myself and let others enjoy if they so desire.__ This is an AU and is a ROMANCE. So yeah, don't be surprised if it's... a romance. :p_

_Let's get started, shall we? This is Season 4-ish, but very AU to the show so far. For example, Eric's incident won't happen and Alcide is not with Debbie._

_True Blood is the property of Charlaine Harris and Allan Ball/HBO. I am privileged to be allowed to write about their universe._**  
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**A Woman's Best Friend**

**1. Surgery**

Sky was tired. It had been a long day in Shreveport and she just wanted to go home, have some hot chocolate, and maybe watch some TV. Or surf the net.

Something calm and relaxing. Something simple, something that required about two brain cells—one if she could manage it. But she had to get there, first. And she'd just moved into the old farm house outside of Bon Temps the week before, so she was still living from boxes. The hot chocolate was in the cabinet—the cups were under five other boxes. The TV was still in its box.

She sighed as she continued down the dark road. It got dark early now, with the onset of what passed for winter in Louisiana. The stereo in her car had taken a dump the day before, to make matters better. And it wasn't that old of a car, either, to her way of thinking.

She drove further, before she saw something lying beside the road. It lay still and white, and at first she thought it was garbage or perhaps roadkill. But then it moved. It wasn't much movement, but it was enough to indicate it was still alive.

She stopped. She was a vet, so the least she could do was stop and see if the poor beast could be saved. If not, she had her kit in the back seat. A quick end would be the most humane thing she could offer in the worst case.

Hopping out, she walked toward it, her headlights pointing her way. It raised its head again, and she realized it was a wolf. If not a wolf, then a hybrid of one, for certain.

"Easy girl," she murmured. "Easy there."

At the sound of her voice, the tail thumped, and she realized it wasn't a 'girl' at all. And it must be a prized breeding dog, because it hadn't been neutered, either.

"Sorry boy, couldn't see your bits before. You gonna let me get close to you? Huh? There's a good boy. Let me see you, okay? I'm not going to hurt you. Easy now." She knew that, with most animals, it mattered less what you said, than your tone of voice.

He lifted his head slightly and whimpered.

"Okay. You're okay. Easy there." She smoothed his soft coat. "Don't be afraid, sweety. I'm here to help. I'm here to help if I can. You relax and let me see what we've got here, okay? Easy now."

She found the problem, and though the wolf yelped and lifted his head, he didn't bite or fight her. She felt it as gently as she could and her brow wrinkled. She picked up a syringe from her bag, and some tranquilizer.

"Alright, pretty fellow. Someone shot you, huh? It's awful close to your lung, and I can't afford you moving around since I don't know where the bullet is." She prepared the syringe, and ran her hand down his fur. "I'm going to put you to sleep, sweety. You relax and it'll be okay."

The dog growled and snarled, struggling.

"No, no, no! Shhh, shhh," she pacified him. "You're just going to suffer in the car if you're awake, beautiful. Let me help you sleep so it doesn't hurt."

He continued to growl and snarl.

She sighed. "You're too smart for your own good, huh? I'm not going to hurt you, beautiful. I can't operate on you here. It's too dirty, and I don't have all of my equipment. Come on, now, calm down." The wolf subsided, dropping his head weakly. "There you go, boy. There you go. Little stab and you'll be all better when yo wake up. Easy now."

She did it quickly and watched his eyes fall shut and his breathing steady. She rubbed his fur gently. "There you go, sweety. You're going to be okay, I promise." But she wasn't sure.

She struggled, heaving and panting, to get him into the car. Finally, she had him in the back seat, her worry and fear for him increasing every time she jostled or shifted him. At last, in the car, she pulled out her cell phone and called Carlos.

"I know, Carlos, it's late. Listen, I need you for surgery. I've found an injured dog." At Carlos's question, she answered, "No, he's been shot. And it's very close to the lung. I'll need your help getting him out of the car, he's incredibly heavy. I only barely got him into the car."

She clicked the phone shut after Carlos agreed to be at the office by the time she got there. It was going to be a long night.

They geared up quickly. The world outside was peaceful and quiet. No cars were out in Shreveport that evening. There was nothing except the quiet hum of some sort of production facility that operated twenty-four hours per day.

Inside, Sky put on the soft classical music that allowed her to focus. Then she began to shave the wolf around the bullet wound. It was definitely a bullet wound. But he had also torn out the knee on his front left leg. It might never heal at all... but she was going to try.

She first took x-rays of his ribs. The bullet was lodged millimeters from a lung. If she wasn't perfectly steady, it would puncture it, and he would probably die. It had moved slightly, as well, tearing an artery. Time had become a precious and spare commodity.

She lifted the mask over her face and took a deep breath. Coming in from under his ribcage, she worked methodically. With great care, she slowly worked her way inside him as Carlos managed his anesthesia and handed her tools. The closer she got to it, the deeper her concern became.

"You aren't going to be able to get it," Carlos 'encouraged' her.

She gave him a baleful look.

He subsided. "I'm just sayin'."

She finally had the bullet in her grip. But the angle it was at meant it would have to come out against a bone. If she didn't do it precisely, it would open a second artery, because the bullet was fragmented and thus sharp.

With a painful twist of her wrist, she slowly eased it out. Dropping it in a basin, she went back in quickly. She carefully reconstructed his artery. The blood loss was staggering—recovery was going to be difficult at best. But with great care over some four hours, she restructured his artery with a tiny tube designed for the purpose—though for humans. They didn't make such things for dogs, they just put them down.

But Sky felt that helping pets was helping people.

So she knuckled down and rebuilt the torn artery. Then she methodically removed bits of the fractured bullet, one by one. One of them was almost as close to the lung as the bullet had been, but was fortunately easier to remove.

She sutured some of the worst tears and the areas she had sliced, and closed him back up carefully.

Then she shaved his leg. The ligaments had been torn away, but she believed it would heal with time. But it would take therapy and careful care.

Hours ticked by as she sowed and carefully reattached the torn ligaments.

At last, she was finished. She straightened up and groaned.

"I'm going to take him home, Carlos. I'll need your help."

"Come on, seriously? Leave him here. He'll be fine."

"It's a long weekend, and he's the only animal we've got. Do you want to come in to care for him each day?"

Carlos sighed. "No. I'll help you and then I'm done until Tuesday, right?" He was a mixture of irritated and excited.

"Yes, Carlos. Not until Tuesday."

They got the wolf into the car, and later into Sky's house. Carlos left, peeling out in the gravel drive on his way. Sky shook her head wryly. Then she went into her room and collapsed on her bed, the wolf in the livingroom on a pallet she'd brought from the clinic.

When she awakened, it was daylight. Light tried to sneak past the pulled drapes, refusing to accept the prohibition against waking the room's sole inhabitant. She stretched, looking around. What had awakened her?

Then she heard it again. Quiet, soft, it was a scratching sound.

The wolf!

Jumping out of bed, she didn't bother to throw a robe over her Pjs. She just ran out to see the wolf trying to climb off of the pallet.

"Oh no. No," she scolded him. "Stay! You're going to tear your stitches!" She rushed to him, patting him, trying to reassure him.

Then a thought struck her. "Oh, you're probably thirsty. Always are after waking from anesthesia. You stay here, sweety. I'll be right back."

She got a bowl from the kitchen, since she had no pet bowls. She put a small amount of water in it. He drank it and then whined at her.

"No, sweety. Any more and you'll be sick. You won't be thanking me then, when you're vomiting and hurting your chest. That was a pretty nasty wound, and you only barely survived." She inspected the wounds, pleased that they looked fine still.

Walking back into the kitchen, she got a pain killer for him and wrapped it in a small piece of calf liver. She offered it to him, but he looked away.

"Come on. Meat's your natural food, beautiful. And you're going to get hungry eventually. All I'm going to give you is raw liver. You've lost a tremendous amount of blood, and without organ meats, you won't be able to replenish it. Come on," she told him. She waved it again. "It's all you're going to get. I'm sorry you've only ever been given dried food or cooked food, but you need this for your recovery."

She sat down beside him and sighed as he dropped his head onto his feet and refused to look at her.

She leaned down and kissed him on the top of the head. "It's got a pain killer in it. If you change your mind, it'll be right here." She dropped it into the bowl and went back to bed.

When she woke she found him sleeping and the meat still in the bowl. This one was going to be a tough nut to crack, she realized. He would have to have the raw meat if he was going to heal properly, though. She patted him, then started moving boxes.

When she was done excavating the TV, she groaned. She was still weary from several hours in surgery, and relatively little sleep. The TV was big and bulky, if not rather heavy. She had already set up the entertainment center, so all she had to do was to get the TV up there and reconnected to it. No small feat, all things considered.

Sweating and struggling, she finally got the TV connected. She looked over to find the wolf watching her with interest.

She wagged a finger at him. "Don't look at me like that. I work out, it's a heavy TV!" He cocked his head at her, and she said, "This is what God invented men for." He laid his head down. She chuckled. "There's nothing you could do, even if you were well. You're a dog!" she ruffled his ears affectionately then raised his face up. "God invented you for companionship and love. And chasing squirrels."

She got him some chunks of liver. He looked at them and turned away. She sighed. Putting a small amount of water beside him, she watched him for an hour after drinking it. When he was okay, she got him a full bowl of it.

She put the liver back in the fridge.

Sitting down on the floor, she gently pulled his head into her lap and petted him. She was in luck, the cable had been hooked up, and she finally found one of her favorite comedies. She hadn't seen Better Off Dead in years, though at one point she'd owned it on VHS.

She petted him through part of the movie, then she gently eased him off of her. She was soon back with a brush and brushed him while she watched the movie. By the time the movie ended, she was done.

"Let's go," she told him. "Let me help you."

She helped him get up, and walked to the door. "You can't do your business inside, you should be about due. I know it's hard, but you need to go."

He made his way to the door and out, and she was pleased with how spry he seemed, considering his injuries. He went out and completed his business quickly. She didn't blame him, he was no doubt in considerable pain.

When he got back into the house, she placed a platter of liver in front of him again. He sniffed and turned away.

"I'll keep offering it until you eat it," she told him.

He gave her a surprisingly human looking dirty look, sniffed the food again, and took a small morsel of it. Then he stood up and buried his nose in it, wolfing it down as if he were starving. She chuckled and got him some more. He ate that, as well, and then another when she offered it, devouring it all in rapid succession.

"Looks like I'll need to go to the store," she told him. He laid down, and she swore he looked contrite. She patted him, rubbing his ears. "I'm glad to see you eating so well. Nothing better for recovering from an injury than raw liver. You keep eating like that and you'll be alright."

To her surprise, his recovery was unbelievably swift. So swift that she had a hard time crediting her eyes. It was Monday when she decided she would take him in and remove his stitches. Normally, she would wait a weak, but there was already a bright pink scar underneath, so well healed that she could almost think it was a month or two month old injury.

She pulled the stitches out quickly, then patted him. "Good boy, you were so patient."

Someone pounded on the front door. She patted him again and said, "I'll be back."

She opened the front door to a dangerous-looking man with long hair. His motorcycle sat behind him, and she cursed herself for removing the stitches in the sound-proofed surgical room. "Good afternoon," she greeted him. "Is this a pet emergency? Otherwise, we are actually closed. I just came in-"

"It's sort of a pet emergency," he cut her off. "I've lost mine, and I fear he was injured last time I saw him. Has anyone brought a wolf in here for treatment?"

She raised her eyebrow at him. Something about him raised every hackle she had. If this man was the wolf's owner, he had probably hurt him, himself. She made a decision she knew she'd regret if she got caught, "No one brought a wolf in, sir," she replied, completely truthfully. After all, she had found him, he hadn't been 'brought in' so to say.

"Really? What are you doing in today? Isn't this a holiday?"

"I have no life, Mr.-?"

"Bozeman. Marcus Bozeman," he supplied.

"Well, I have no life, Mr. Bozeman. So I've come into my clinic today to do paperwork."

"I think you're hiding something," he growled. He shoved the door open and pushed past her.

"Like what, dirty socks?" She glared at him. "You are trespassing. Please leave now."

He glared at her and started smelling the air. "I smell wolf," he told her.

"It's probably you. You smell like wet dog."

He glared at her and she crossed her arms, staring back belligerently. He walked into the other room and she went behind the counter and grabbed the phone. She dialed 9-1-1 and asked that police be sent immediately.

She feared for the wolf.

She heard him opening and closing doors and wondered how he hadn't already found his wolf. But she said nothing, laying the phone down quietly.

He came back into the main foyer. "If you're lying, I'll find out," he snarled at her. "That wolf is prime stock, and he's mine." Then he cocked his head. "Did you call the police?"

She tilted her chin. "I asked you to leave. You have fair notice that you are trespassing."

He shook his head. "This ain't over. I know you know something."

She gave him a surprised look. "You'd be the only person who thinks I know anything anything about much of anything," she answered dryly, hating how much her parents hated her for choosing to be a vet rather than a doctor.

He stared at her for a minute or so. Then he said, "Listen, I'm sorry. I'm just real worried about my wolf. I'm afraid he was badly wounded when he ran off and might die. I'm not trying to excuse my actions, I just... if you've ever lost a pet, maybe you can understand."

She didn't like the oily, insincere man. But she said, "I do understand. I think we've all lost pets. But please leave now. I really do want to get back to work and I'm a little shaken up."

"Right," he told her. He grabbed her card off of the desk and wrote a number on the back of it with his name. "If you see him, please give me a call. I'd appreciate it."

She nodded, not daring to speak.

He walked out, roaring out of the parking a minute or two before police arrived. She left a report with them and then went in search of the wolf. She couldn't find him anywhere, and felt completely boggled. It was unimaginable that he had been able to escape, unless he was smart enough to open the door and go out the back. It was a pull down knob so it wouldn't be impossible by any stretch. But it was unlikely.

Finally, defeated but content that he had at least been healed before he ran off, she went to her car after locking the clinic up.

She headed home, surprised to find herself quite saddened. But she was glad that the man who had showed up and demanded she hand him over, hadn't found him. He was a sweet animal, and she had gotten nothing but bad vibes off of this 'Marcus'.

She was halfway home when something cold and wet prodded the back of her arm, causing her to jump with a shriek. She swerved and got an enraged honk for her trouble. Catching a glimpse of the back seat, she barely looked back at the road in time to return to her own lane and avoid a head-on collision.


	2. Wolf Man

**2. Wolf-Man**

"What the hell?" she cried. The wolf was in the back seat of her car! She tilted the mirror so she could see him. "Getting me killed is not a good way to pay me back for saving your life!" she chastised him.

He dropped his head down and gave her sad eyes.

She sighed and relented. "How did you even get in here?" she demanded. She shook her head, knowing he couldn't answer. "But you did remind me that I need to start looking in the back seat before I get in, again. That guy that came looking for a wolf was creepy."

She pulled into her drive. Opening the back door, she let him out of the small sedan. "Come on, sweety. Let's get inside and bed you down. I'm going to the store, but I'll be right back. You're a good eater, and I'm glad of that, but it means I'm going to need to get some more or you'll be starving."

She inspected his wounds and shook her head. Even his hair was growing back at unbelievable speed. "If I didn't know better, buddy, I'd say you've got supernatural healing. Even my alternative healing methods shouldn't be doing this kind of healing. But I don't mind. If you don't need to suffer, you shouldn't." She hugged him around the neck and left.

When she got back, she called him up onto the sofa. Watching Syfy channel, she brushed him. She was watching the show Alphas when she told him, "You know, once I would have thought this show was total trash. But now that vampires are out and we know they're true, it's hard to know for sure what to believe." She pulled his head against her chest and rubbed his ears playfully. "Maybe with your fast healing, you're an alpha." She took his head in her hands and chuckled at him, "You get it? Alpha wolf?" Then she sighed dramatically. "Ah, no sense of humor, wolves."

She chuckled and went back to brushing him.

The next day, he went to work with her. She decided not to show Carlos the extreme speed with which the wolf was healing. He didn't ask. They spent the day with few to no customers, and finally it was the end of the day.

Carlos said, "I don't know how you manage to pay me. I'm not too sure how you'll survive in this backwoods town."

But Sky wasn't worried. She had created the arterial replacement tube that she had inserted into the wolf to save him. The veterinary world had laughed at her, despite the fact that it was cheap and easy to use and create. The medical world for humans, however, had jumped at it. She would never be poor so long as there was a medical industry.

She just told him, "I want to be a small town, Carlos. I want the gentler pace of life and the ability to spend more time with each patient and his or her owner."

He laughed. "You're lookin' for love in all the wrong places, my girl."

She threw a pad of paper at him, which he deftly caught.

"I've accepted my status as Old Maid, I thank you very much. At least out here in the quiet 'burbs, my parents won't keep throwing 'acceptable young men' at me so that they can pat me on the head and tell me how quaint it is that I'm a veterinarian, and how I won't need to be once we're married," she snorted.

She got up and picked up her lab coat. "Go home now, Carlos. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Hey, there's a vamp bar here. You should check it out."

She shook her head. "I think you might be a little insane, Carlos. I fit bars about as much as pickles fit with cheesecake."

"Now that's just gross shit right there."

"Ah, you did get my point, after all!"

And Carlos was gone. She walked back to find the wolf laying on his back, his paws in the air. Chuckling, she walked up to him. "Are you feeling playful? I don't know if you've seen it, but I have a massive back yard, and a frisbee. Let's go home and check it out."

When she had him in the car, this time in the passenger seat, she told him, "I'm going to want you to potty in the back from now on, alright? I have a feeling that guy who claims to be your owner really isn't, and you are in some kind of danger. You'd be surprised how much such a gorgeous wolf pelt will sell for."

When she got home, she said, "Do you mind if I call you Marrok?" He didn't respond, but didn't seem to be displeased, either. "That's the name of one of King Arthur's knights, rumored to be a werewolf, and extremely loyal-"

His head had lifted and perked up at the words. She chuckled. "A werewolf isn't really the same as you, sweety, but Marrok was an alpha type of warrior. You haven't had a chance to show your colors yet, but my money's on you being pretty loyal and courageous if the stakes are thrown down." She kissed him on the head.

Then she went into the kitchen and started cutting some meat for him.

"But listen, now. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, okay? You're not going to stay here forever. I have a strict no-pet policy. I have to deal with animals all day, every day. And a thousand times a year, I want to bring another one home. If I gave into that urge, I'd have nowhere to sleep for the pets. So don't you get any ideas." She waved the knife at him. "I mean it, now."

He laid his head on his paws.

"You can stay for now." She sighed. "But at the rate you're healing, I'm going to run out of excuses soon."

She handed him his food, pleased to see him eat with gusto. "Let's go outside and play, shall we?" she asked.

She threw the frisbee. He looked at her. She put her hands on her hips. "Are you serious? You're supposed to go catch it. And there I thought you were so well taken care of."

She walked over and picked it up herself. Wagging it at her, she said, "You may think it's beneath your dignity now, mister. But let me tell you something. This is one of the best exercises there are for you. Not only will it allow you to keep your excellent health, but it also will help that knee recover properly. Besides, I'm bored and I want to play. So please?"

He cocked his head and laid down, putting his head on on his paws.

She cleared her throat, making an extremely exaggerated puppy dog eyes face. "Look at me. This is my sad face. I am sad you won't play with me."

He looked up and his tail thumped. Once, then twice.

She grinned and pointed. "Ah, you do have a sense of humor!"

She threw the frisbee, and he gave her a disgusted look. He got up and trotted after it. But she raced past him and grabbed it.

"Slow-ass wolf," she laughed. She threw it again, and then ran after it. He raced her for it and beat her easily.

He brought it to her, and she threw it again, this time backwards. He beat her again. Soon she was breathless from laughing. A while later, she threw it and raced him, and he cut ahead of her. She fell over him, sprawling headlong in the dirt, her brown hair made even more brown by one of the worn spots in the yard that she'd vowed to have sodded.

She sat up, spitting dirt. She found him nosing her, and grabbed him, rolling him over. Laughing, she wrestled him for a few minutes, then let him go.

"Let's go inside," she told him. "You need a bath, and so do I."

She gave him a bath in the tub, having no animal implements besides a few brushes and the bowls she'd bought him that day for his food.

When she was done, she was soaked, and she looked down to find her t-shirt clinging to her body. "Good thing I wore a bra," she told him, "or someone would think I was in a wet t-shirt contest. How in the hell can one wolf splash this much?"

He was looking away from her and she laughed. "That's right, now you're all contrite. It's a little too late now, buster, you've already soaked me." He kept looking away, though. "Come on, you've got to get out. I'm not going to wait all day to towel you down."

He got out and she took the towel to him, vigorously drying him. She checked his ears to be sure she hadn't gotten anything in them, and then rinsed the tub. Letting the shower curtain back down from over the rod, she pulled her shirt off, dropping it on top of the wet towel.

He whined at the door.

"Oh no," she told him. "You're not going out there to wet the furniture. You make yourself comfortable on that rug right there. I'll be done in a minute." He whined again at the door. "No," she told him firmly. She stepped into the tub and turned the tap on, chuckling at the doggie 'gentleman' who wouldn't look at her.

When she got out, she opened the door, and let him escape to the living room. "You stay off the sofa!" she called to him. "I'll be out in a minute and I'll be mad if you wet my furniture!"

Soon she had Pjs on and came out to sit beside him. She brushed him while she listened to some music and turned on the fake electric fireplace.

"This is my concession to vanity," she told him. He looked up at her. She pointed at the fire place. "All that money, and I do nothing but charity work with it. Some people might think it's modesty or some such rot. I just don't really need much of anything. But a fireplace? That's my gift to myself. I'm going to hire someone to put in a real one. Yeah, with wood and everything."

She rubbed his belly and he rolled over. His leg twitched, and she giggled. "You're a very dignified dog, Marrok. It's okay if you let your leg go. I won't ever tell anyone, I promise." She kept rubbing him and laughed as he twitched again.

She went to bed with him lying on the floor on the pallet beside the bed. As she often did, she got up in the early morning and went to go get a 'midnight snack' around four am. She stepped on him and he snarled and growled at her.

"Easy there. Easy. I'm terribly sorry, I didn't mean to step on you." She murmured it gently to him.

Then she realized it wasn't her that he was growling at...

A figure loomed in the doorway. She lunged at the small dresser beside the bed and had the gun out and opened fire at nearly point-blank range. The man shrieked, an unholy sound, and turned to run. Stumbling out of the house, he ran down the driveway.

He stopped midway down her driveway. She leveled the gun at him. "Keep running," she shouted. "Or I'll make sure the next shot kills you. This is your last warning." She fired again, purposefully shaving along the side of his shoulder, the lightest graze.

He ran.

She walked back inside and slumped to the floor, lying against the door. She had to gasp several times, trying hard to get her rampant emotions and terror under control.

Marrok padded over to her, and she buried her face in his fur, gripping him and sobbing. He licked her face and she sat back.

"Now you know my dirty little secret," she said, sobbing. "I'm a crack shot but I have never used it that way before." She leaned forward again and laid against him, draped over his shoulders, sobbing.

Finally, she had sobbed it out, and she sat back. "Don't worry, I'm not having a breakdown. I do this every time I have to put an animal to sleep. It's pathetic, I know." She wiped her eyes. Ruffling his ears and fur, she said, "That's the great thing about animals. You may not understand why I'm crying, but you don't judge me for doing it."

She got up. "So," she told him. "I was hungry. How about you? Are you hungry?"

He perked up his ears, so she gave him some food. She got out some ice cream, but found it freezer burned and unpalatable.

"Someone should break into my house more often so my ice cream won't go bad," she joked. Marrok's ears flickered, but he gave no other response.

"How about a fire?" she asked, redundantly.

She turned it on and then some music. She set her gun nearby. Sighing, she laid down and watched the fire, falling asleep with her arm thrown over Marrok.

The next day, there were reports of shots in the area, but nothing of the man who'd been shot. She took Marrok with her to the quiet, dead clinic. A lady came in that afternoon for a checkup for her cat. That was it, though.

Carlos played computer games all day, and she grinned as she heard him remark as much to someone on the phone, "I get paid to play computer games all day. I'm good."

Of course, he paid for it with late night all night surgeries now and again. But he was paid for those, as well.

She went home that evening and watched some TV, before settling in at the computer. There, she did some research on the local area, hoping to find someone who could install a fireplace for her. She had no luck, because the one construction company in the area informed her that they were booked with local street work for something like six months. If it wasn't an emergency, it would have to wait.

That night, the gun lay on the dresser, rather than in the drawer.

Marrok sat looking at her with sad eyes, which made her cry again.

"Come on," she said softly and patted the bed. He looked down and away. "Please?" He ducked and whined. "I don't want to be alone," she told him softly. "I know I forbade the bed, but what if he comes back?"

He jumped up and laid down at the foot of the bed.

She ruffled his fur. "Good enough." She smiled softly and laid down. A few minutes later, she opened one eye and looked at him. "I can feel you staring." He laid his head down and she chuckled. "Anybody who says dogs aren't smart, never lived with one."

She went to sleep, but woke up several times. In the early morning hours, she sat up in the midst of a scream. She had been shooting people in her dream, the same dream she had of putting animals to sleep, only this time with people.

Marrok crept up the bed to nudge his nose under her hand. She grabbed him and fought back tears until he licked her face. Then she giggled, surprised not to turn to tears. "Thank you," she murmured to him. "Go back to sleep, sweety."

She laid down and managed to follow her own advice. She let him sleep on the bed for a week, before realizing she'd slept the previous night through with the gun still in its drawer.

She took him out for his usual play, and then inspected his wounds. There weren't even scars left.

"I'd like to think that my physical therapy helped you," she told him. "But it seems more like you have a special ability to heal faster than other wolves. Other anything, really. Not even octopuses heal so fast." She stood up. "Let's go inside. I need a shower."

That night, she made herself some roast pork sandwiches. She looked over to find him watching, licking his chops as she ate. When he saw her looking, he turned away.

"Somebody gave you human food, huh? Well. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, provided it's rare. But I'm not going to teach you to beg, so you'll have to wait a while."

An hour or so later, she gave him his own sandwich and some mashed potatoes. He gobbled them, and she chuckled. "Good to know you like my cooking. Now if you were just four or five feet taller and less hairy."

She strolled with him in the yard that evening.

It was another week, though, before she admitted to Carlos, "I'm running out of reason to keep him with me." She looked over at Marrok.

"Then just keep him cause you want him. What're you going to do, put up an ad in the paper, 'One white wolf, mint condition'? He'll be butchered for his pelt within hours."

"Not just that," she admitted. "Some guy came in claiming to own a wolf that had been injured. I think he's the one that shot him. If I'm to find another home for it, it would have to be done discreetly."

"Well, since you know all of nobody in either this town or the one you live in, good luck with that," Carlos answered. "Night, girl." He kissed her on the cheek, a surprising gesture from the usually reserved man. "Keep him. You're lonely. You've been better with him around."

They went home that evening. Sky paced the house, considering. She wasn't ready yet to commit to having a pet.

She sat down beside him where he lay watching the TV. She'd figured out, to her great amusement, that there were certain shows he actually liked. When she landed on them with the remote, he would thump his tail. If she moved on, he would drop his head.

She brushed him, talking during the commercials. "I decided to become a vet when I had to have a dog put to sleep as a child. She was struck in a wreck, and injured so badly that she couldn't even be operated on. The vet told us in the coldest, harshest tone to 'wake up' and realize she wasn't going to make it and that all of her suffering would be our fault. When my parents said he could do it, he yanked her leg up and injected her, then dropped it roughly and walked out, demanding someone get the 'carcass' out of the room so he could get on with it."

She wiped a tear away. "I decided to be the vet that would at least try. And if all else failed and it had to be done, I would tell them gently and help their pet pass with dignity and with a loving touch. It hurt most that she died that way."

"I promised myself I'd never have another dog. I had cats for a while, but I had to put one down. I did it myself, and it was harder than any of the others—and those are hard. You're so sweet, and incredibly intelligent. But I'm afraid of that day. I almost already had to do it to you. You were so close to death—if that bullet had moved even a millimeter, your lung would have filled and I would have had to..." She choked up and couldn't continue.

She pointed at the screen. "Watch your show. It's back on." She picked the brush back up to brush him again while he watched, to soothe her own memories.

He licked her face. She pushed him away. "Stop that. Watch your show, I'll brush you. I'm fine." He licked her again, dodging around her hand. A minute later, she was wrestling him and found herself laughing in spite of herself. He wagged his tail and 'woofed' at her, daring her to go outside.

"It's after dark," she told him. "I won't even be able to see where the frisbee lands!"

But they went outside and ran, chasing each other and playing. A while later, Sky collapsed on the ground. "Okay, okay. I'm exhausted. Come on." She patted the ground next to her. "Look, it's Orion. I love Orion."

She pointed out various constellations to him before admitting, "That's all I know. Not a huge repertoire, I know." She pointed at the sky. "How many do you know?"

He barked, a soft, low 'woof'.

"Really? I've not heard of that one. You'll have to point it out."

He laid his head down.

"Giving up so easily? I'm disappointed," she informed him. He licked her. "No... no! Not with the licking again!" She jumped up and ran for the house.

Something very big, very tall, and very terrifying landed in front of her. She ran into it and then backpedaled sharply. "Ahhh!" she shrieked. The vampire hissed at her. She grabbed a nearby fallen limb from the tree across the fence and swung it at him. He grabbed the branch and snapped it.

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to talk to him," he pointed at Marrok.

"My dog?" she turned around to look at Marrok.

He shimmered and altered and stood up. "Ahh!" she shrieked again. "Oh my god! Oh... Oh!" her hand flew to her mouth. "You—You're a... you're a man!" Then she felt her face go white, followed by a flood of heat. She went from mouth to eyes with the same hand. "You're a naked man!" She stumbled backward, running into the vampire, who hissed at her again. "Ahhh!" She jumped away.

"She's annoying," the vampire said.

"What do you want, Eric?" came another other voice, rich and fluid and warm.

"If I can find you, they can find you."

Sky turned to go in the house. Her shirt was grabbed by the vampire. "Where do you think you're going."

"I'm going inside and pretending none of this ever happened!" she scowled at him. "Let me go, you cretin!"

"Sky, please-"

"Let me go!" she yelled at Eric. "Let me go!"

"Stop that," he snapped at her. "You can't harm me, and I don't like it."

She stopped, staring at him, her chin quivering. A tear ran down her face.

"Oh stop, I told you I'm not going to hurt you."

"You turned my dog into a naked man!" she yelled at him. "You bastard!"

He leaned towards her, and the other voice—belonging to the naked man that she wanted to look at but wasn't going to—interrupted. "Don't glamor her, Eric. She saved my life, she deserves better."

"Invite me into your house," Eric told her.

"No way!"

"I can make you," he said softly.

Her gaze fell, and she felt utterly defeated. "Come in," she told him.

He let go of her and she half walked, half dashed into the house. She headed back toward her room when she was stopped by Eric again. "Sit down. We all need to have a discussion."

The no-longer-a-wolf man was still disturbingly naked.

"I'd rather stay out of it," she said.

"You're in it now, you don't get the choice."

A moment later, Marrok came walking back out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. "I'm sorry, Sky. My name is Alcide." He held his hand out towards her.

She blushed and backed away. "No thanks. You're still..." she struggled to get the word out past her embarrassment, "..naked under there still. It's a little... strange." Despite looking away, she'd caught sight of a powerful torso, lean and muscled.

She went over and sat down on the sofa, huddling into herself in abject mortification. The man-wolf dude had seen her taking a shower! And licked her face! And...

"I gave you a bath," she said. Her thoughts went to her breasts poking through her lace bra and wet shirt. She covered her mouth and closed her eyes, trying to get the completely inappropriate image out of her head.

"Kinky," Eric said.

Putting her fingers to her temple, she said, "What do you want, vampire?"


	3. Uncertainties

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><p><strong>3. Uncertainties<strong>

Alcide felt terrible. Poor Sky, who had done nothing but help him, sat curled up in a tiny little fetal-position ball on the sofa.

"Alcide needs a place to hide," Eric told her. "I found him by sheer luck, I admit, but I did find him."

"How _did_ you find him?" she demanded.

"Sky!" Alcide warned her. She had no idea the danger she was putting herself in with her attitude.

Eric smiled at her, a predatory, dangerous smile. "I was coming to ask if you had treated a wolf with a gunshot wound. And obviously, you did."

"Yes, I did. So you can take him now." She sat up, placing her hands on her lap, her face very white and drawn. "Are we done here?"

Eric hissed at her, and she recoiled, but glared.

"We're done when I say we're done. He needs a place to hide."

"There are thousands of hotels in this area. I'm sure he'll be fine at any one of them."

"Barely hundreds, and no, he wouldn't. Your home is ideal, actually." Eric snapped his teeth back in. "I'm willing to pay you so that he doesn't eat you out of house and home. 'Weres tend to eat everything in sight."

"Hey!" Alcide objected.

"'Weres?" She closed her eyes and sat back. "Like werewolves?"

"Yes," Eric dismissed the question. "The real issue here is that your home is the perfect place-"

"No."

"No?" Eric's eyebrow rose. "You really can't say 'no' in this situation," he told her.

She glared at him. "He lied to me. He tricked me. I saved his life and his response was to pretend to be a dog while I showered in his presence and I poured my heart out to him, and..." she crossed her arms. "No. I'm not having some strange man living in my house!"

"You have for the last couple weeks. What's a few months longer."

"Eric, just... can you give us a minute?" Alcide asked.

Eric stood up. "Take all the time you need." He opened his wallet and handed Alcide a credit card. "Get some clothes and pay for your own food. Call me if you need me. Don't use your own credit card or phones for anything."

Then he flitted out, leaving the door hanging open.

"Sky, please-"

"I really don't want you here," she told him. "You did. You tricked me. You let me care for you, and bathe you, and sleep with you, and I even..." her face got even redder—a feat Alcide could never have imagined, "... and I even. I rubbed your belly and I let you climb on me like a... I dunno. I... I'm shocked and I don't know what to think or do or feel. This is all so weird."

He got up and walked over to kneel in front of her. "Sky, just let me explain, I-"

"Please don't do that," she said. She was shifting uncomfortably on the sofa, trying to look anywhere except at him.

"Don't be afraid of me, please. I would never hurt you. I owe you my life, and more than that..."

"It... it isn't that. It's... You... Uh. You're naked." She was blushing furiously again and looking at the ceiling.

He backed away. "Of course. I'm sorry. Listen, Sky," he continued. "I know I owe you a lot of apologies. I really am sorry. All of this stuff that's going on, I tried to stay out of it. But I got shot by a witch. When you saved me, I couldn't turn because of the injuries. Then I... well. I didn't know when or how. And I was afraid you'd react... well. Kind of like you did."

"I don't want you here," she said. "I don't know if you're going to eat me on the full moon or if you are keeping more secrets, or what. And I didn't know you were a man, just a beautiful, sweet dog. Uncomplicated and genuine. But that's not what you are at all."

"Sky, you don't understand the nature of what we're facing here. Eric... he's dangerous. He tortures and kills people. And then there are his good days when he just feeds on them and then glamors them. If he wants you to let me stay and finds out I'm not here, he'll hurt you, or worse."

He saw tears spring to her eyes. "This is _my_ life! You've ruined it!" The tears fell. "I just wanted to move to a sleepy, peaceful little town and care for animals and live quietly!"

She got up. "Sleep on the sofa tonight," she told him. "We'll talk tomorrow."

As she walked past him, he gently grasped her arm to stop her. "I'm really sorry," he told her. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen." Her skin was soft and slightly cool under his fingers. She smelled of crushed grass.

She looked at him, her eyes, at the level of his chest, flickering up to meet his. "What's done is done. Now we go on."

He let his hand drop.

She stopped in the hallway, without turning around. "Alcide."

"Yes?"

"It's a strange name."

"So is yours," he told her, curious at the strange turn of conversation.

"My parents got pregnant in their rebellious hippy stage. Then they were stuck with it."

She wrapped her arms around herself as if she was cold—or traumatized—and continued away down the hall toward her bedroom.

Alcide pulled the towel off and laid it on the sofa. Then he opened the back door and walked out, closing it quietly behind him. He changed form after he opened the back gate and loped into the darkness. He needed to run. To let out the regret and shame he felt for not being honest with Sky.

When he had run his fill, he headed back toward her house. But as he approached, he caught scent of another wolf. This was a 'were, not a regular wolf. He had the smell of humanity around him. He'd never smelled this 'were in his wolf form, so he had no idea whether or not he knew him. But he was obviously sniffing around Sky's home and doubtless smelled Alcide there.

However, something Alcide had noted was that whatever shampoo she used on him so often, distorted his scent, even to him. It was pleasant, but definitely not recognizable. And he hadn't used the 'toilet' outside for over a week. All evidence of him outside would smell old.

But then Sky came outside, and Alcide's heart raced.

She leveled the gun at the other wolf. "I know what you are." He could smell her fear, ripe and heavy in the air. "I will kill you if you don't leave." He could hear the conviction and certainty in her voice.

The other wolf growled, and Alicide started for the house, though he knew he'd never make it if the other wolf sprang.

But the form shimmered and, to Alcide's surprise, Debbie stood up. He stopped, his ears going back against his head. He managed not to growl. Debbie had harmed his family in her rage at him while she was amped up on V. If she was still on V, Sky probably didn't stand a chance even with the gun.

"I smell Alcide here," Debbie said. "Where is he?"

"I don't know, and I don't care," Sky said. There was a conviction in her voice that pierced Alcide's heart. "He was here as a wolf. I treated his injury and then he ran off. I didn't even know what he was until some vampire asshole showed up and interrogated me. Now get the fuck off of my property. I will shoot you. I've already had one burgler here, and I don't give half a damn about your war with vampires, or theirs with witches, or what the fuck ever."

She twitched the gun in a 'get going' gesture. "Don't come back around here. I've had enough already. Vampires? Werewolves? I don't want anything to do with a single damned one of you lot. I came here to have a simple, easy life. Quiet and without disruption. Now _go away_!"

"If I find out you're lying-"

"Don't tell me. The vampire already threatened me. You'll kill me, nobody will ever find me, yada yada. I get it, really. Now can I get some sleep?"

"You're awful brave when you're holding a gun," Debbie snapped at her.

"Fine. Here." Alcide's heart raced as she put the gun down. "Kill me. Get it over with. If not, leave. I've got work tomorrow and I actually have a surgery to perform. It would be nice to get a little sleep first."

Debbie shimmered back into wolf form. She growled, and Alcide's muscles tensed. He could never make it in time.

But Debbie raced out of the yard and off into the night.

Alcide started forward, but then realized that she was probably being honest. She really didn't want him, or any 'were, around. Yet she was right in another area also. Eric would kill her if he came and couldn't find Alcide there. He waited for her to go inside, and then slipped back into the back yard. He slept on the porch, determined to protect her.

The next morning, she put a bowl of fresh meat outside. He waited until she left and ate it. For the next four days, she put meat out for him twice a day. On the fifth day, he came up to eat it in the evening.

"It's rude, you know," she said, scaring him so badly that he yelped. "If you're going to stay, stop skulking in the woods." She pointed at a bag in the corner of the porch. "Clothes, if you decide to at least put forth the effort to be a friend instead of a stalker."

She said nothing more, but went inside the house, closing the door softly behind her.

He ate first, and then went inside. He was surprised to find that it all fit almost exactly, even to the soft-soled moccasins. She was in the kitchen cooking when he came in.

"Can I help?" he asked.

She gasped and jumped so badly that she dropped the glass she'd been about to rinse. It fell into the sink and shattered, spraying glass.

"Ah!" she yelped. "Don't _do_ that! How can a guy who's ten feet tall and a million pounds be so sneaky?"

"I wouldn't know," he deadpanned. "I'm only eight feet tall and a thousand pounds."

She grinned at him, a mixture of irritation and amusement. "That's good to know. I guess my floor will survive your presence in that case. Though the light fixtures are going to be a problem."

He was going to retort when he smelled blood. "You cut yourself?"

"A piece of the glass ricocheted and hit me," she said nonchalantly. "It wouldn't be so bad if it was in my left hand, but it's my right and the glass is still in there."

Now he knew why she was still standing over the sink. He walked over and found her trying awkwardly to pull out a tiny fragment of glass with her left hand. He took her hand and tried to help, noticing that she was pushing it further in, rather than it coming out. But he also found it was wanting to go in, so he used his teeth to grasp it and pull the small shard out.

Dropping it in the sink, he looked at her and started to smile. But he caught the look on her face and said nothing. A cold vice settled over his heart as he saw the doe-in-the-headlights look on her face.

"I'm not a vampire, I don't drink blood," he told her.

"Oh... I... that never occurred to me," she said, turning away from him, her face flooding with color.

He started to object, when he smelled it... a scent both sweet and musky. It wasn't fear that made her look at him that way. He almost felt like laughing out loud with relief... and no small amount of sheer masculine glee.

She was attracted to him.

He took a deep breath to try to bury the satisfaction and pleasure that the knowledge brought him. "So, can I help before you bleed all over the carrots? I think that technically renders them no longer vegetarian."

"Are you a vegetarian?" she asked, eyes widening with surprise and obvious consternation.

He chuckled. "I'm a wolf. So no... not a vegetarian. I was just trying to break the tension a little."

She handed him the carrots and moved over to shredding the pork he'd been smelling cooking all day.

"Alcide," she suddenly said. "Please don't be angry with me."

He stopped cutting and looked at her. "Why would I be angry with you?"

"I... someone came looking for you. A 'were... er. A werewoman. Or whatever. I ran her off. And she wasn't the only one, either."

"Marcus and Debbie. I know. I hid in your car when Marcus came, and I was watching from the woods when Debbie was here."

"Oh," she said, smiling weakly. "I would have told you, if I'd known you weren't just a wolf. And you were gone, when she..."

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this," Alcide told her, hoping she'd hear how much he meant it.

She laid the forks down. "I got myself into it. I found a wolf with a gunshot and I didn't walk away. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not sorry I did that, and I'd probably do it again, even knowing what I do now. But... I did that myself, no one made me do it. I don't regret it. Where it may take me, though... that's another story. I don't know yet if I'll regret that."

She took a breath and picked the forks back up. Then she set them back down and leaned on the counter. "I feel really strange about all of this. I was raised to know how very foolish it is to let a strange man into your home the day you met him. It's insanely stupid. And it's not like you're some wilting lily boy. I'd probably be hard pressed to defend myself from you even with the gun."

She held up her hand to forestall his response and continued, "But on the other hand, I don't feel right about sending you away. Even without the vampire's threats... and I don't want to know why you're so important to him. Anyway, I just... I dunno. I feel confused. If you're like your wolf..." she trailed off.

"If you're like him...since you are him but I don't know if you're the same when you're human or not..." she sighed. "I don't even know how to talk about this properly!"

"I'm mostly the same. More primitive in my wolf form, less controlled in some ways. But I'm the same. I have the same thoughts and ideas. I can reason and understand." He smiled slightly at her. "Don't complicate it. Find a way of talking about it that's comfortable for you, and I'll understand. I think non-'weres find it a lot easier to think of me as two different beings. That way any feelings that are different between the two sides of me are less confusing. I wouldn't expect a non-'were to experience attraction for my wolf form, as an example. So separating me into parts can help reconcile that."

She was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. "Okay," she said, "I think that just weirded me out a little. Do you like bar-b-que or honey mustard with your pulled pork?"

"Bar-b-que," he answered, picking up the pot of carrots and putting it on the stove. "Do you add butter?"

"Definitely," she replied. "The more, the merrier."

"I'll set some out to soften," he told her.

"If I met a werewolf on the street as a human, is there any way to tell?"

He shook his head. "Only for other 'weres. We can smell each other. But I don't know of any humans who have been able to tell. It's a good thing, too. That would be dangerous for us."

"I know that's why you didn't say anything. I know you could have told me after you healed, but you were protecting yourself and your kind. Probably scared shitless of me after the whole 'shooting the intruder' thing." Then she paused as if something had occurred to her. "Was he a werewolf? You were growling at him."

"No, he wasn't a werewolf. But I could tell my lung was still healing. It didn't get pierced, but the muscles around it made it really hard to breathe."

"Oh, yeah, by the way, you should..."

She turned away then. He could see her neck ruddy from blushing where the hair had parted over it.

"Should what?"

"Never mind. Seriously. I'm really good at talking to animals, but everything I say to humans just seems to come out wrong. Forget it," she said.

"If it's something about my health, go ahead and spit it out," he told her. "I'll recover."

"You should eat more raw meat when you're a wolf. Or you should be a wolf more often and eat raw meat." She sounded a little strangled as she said it.

"Why?"

"Just trust me?" Now she sounded downright embarrassed.

"I should know why, don't you think?"

She sighed. "In your wolf form, you had the beginning of a gland problem. If you'll eat more raw meat, and especially organs, and... uh..." She trailed off.

"Glands? What are you talking about? And what?" Now he was starting to feel a little out of his element.

"You should shit more in your wolf form, and eat more raw meat," she told him. It came out nearly as a single word.

"Uh. I don't know what to say to that. Why?"

She groaned and covered her face with her hands. "You've got anal gland problems in your wolf form. Eating raw meat makes dog shit hard, which cleans out the glands."

"Wow," he said, wishing he could go back and not ask. "Now I'm the one 'weirded out'."

"Just think of me as your doctor, and maybe it isn't so bad?"

"No, I think it's safe to say that I still feel pretty awkward about it."

"Next time, just trust me? If I didn't tell you, since I'm the only vet in miles, you'd probably end up visiting me anyway. Better now than then. Cause then I would have to... well. You wouldn't like it."

"So you didn't have to do that yet?"

At her silence, he groaned. "This could be the single most embarrassing conversation I've ever had in my entire life." He'd had his wolf anal glands cleaned out by the gorgeous lady vet while he was unconscious.

"Well, you haven't really lived yet, then," she said, her voice slightly joking and slightly embarrassed.

"Anyway," she said in a clear attempt to change the subject, "at least now it makes sense why you were watching so much TV. I've bought another TV for the bedroom, and now neither of us will have to lose out on our favorite shows. I could use help getting it out of the car. Since it's in the garage, no one will see you."

"Ah, yes," he joked, trying to redeem his lost masculinity in part, "that's what God created men for, right?"

She waved a stirring spoon at him. "I would never have said that to you, you know. If I'd known."

"I should go wolf form more often. I might eventually begin to understand the female mind to some degree." He turned the cooking carrots off and poured them into a strainer.

"And what good would that do? All the mystery would be gone and we'd become boring."

"I can't imagine that," he told her, catching her eye and holding her gaze for a protracted second.

She smiled slightly, blushed, and looked away.

"So the clothes fit," she said after a moment of uncertain, awkward silence.

"Yeah. I'm surprised. I didn't know there were any big-and-tall shops around this area."

"I ordered them next-day and had them delivered to work so I'd be sure to be there to get them." She finished laying silverware out on the table. Then she stopped. "Did you prefer to eat in front of the TV or something? Sorry, I don't do that often-"

"I know," he said. "I've watched you do it, and frankly sometimes the smell of your cooking was killing me. It was like a reprieve from jail when you relented and let me have some."

He looked up to find her staring at him, stricken. "It's bad for dogs," she said weakly. "I didn't mean to-" She covered her mouth with her hand.

He stepped over and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "You took fantastic care of my wolf. You saved him when he was dying. You made him healthier than he's felt in a long time. Don't beat yourself up for not knowing what you couldn't possibly have known." He kissed her lightly on the forehead. Then he tilted her face up toward his, "You don't have anything to be regretful over."

"I'm struggling with this a little," she answered him. "It's going to take time to figure it out." She sat down. "I hope that my cooking is as good as a human as it was when you were a wolf," she said. "After all, nothing makes the heart grow fonder than absence, right?"

But she couldn't look at him and he felt horrible. He'd pushed her for information it turned out he wasn't sure he'd wanted. He'd walked on her feelings about her care of him while he was a wolf, and in general, he had created a situation of awkwardness and discomfort.

That, of course, was if you didn't consider the fact that he'd run away when Marcus showed up, and not approached when Debbie had. If he was honest with himself, which he was trying to be, it was because he'd been afraid it would mean he'd have had to leave. Which was huge, given that this was the first time he'd ever even considered not trying to make things work with Debbie. Well, except for Sookie, who'd been in love with Bill.

He ate his sandwich with gusto. It was delicious, and there was plenty of it. Now that he was back in human form, he needed the calories and protein so he could work out again. Which he was going to have to get serious about if he was going to protect her.

And he was. Of that, he gave himself no doubts, and no questions.


	4. The Man Card

**4. The Man Card**

Screwing up a conversation that badly had to break some kind of karmic, cosmic law or something, Sky thought. She could never be considered socially graceful, but the very idea that anyone in the whole world could have acted more socially stupid was suddenly inconceivable.

In the presence of one of the best looking men she'd ever seen, who seemed to be an incredible gentleman—at least in his wolf form... a queer thought in and of itself—she had done what? Babbled about milking anal glands of dogs and how he needed to shit harder. Well, shit harder shit. Because somehow, the clarification made it better... No. No, it didn't.

She pushed a carrot around the plate. She couldn't end it there, either. She'd also sat there eating in front of him while he was starving for human food, and she couldn't image that the amount of meat he was getting in his wolf form sustained his far more massive human frame. Or did it?

Her thoughts were a muddle. She couldn't figure out how to feel about him. Should she be embarrassed about rubbing his wolf belly?

"Would you like me to take that," he interrupted her thoughts, "or have you grown fond of that particular carrot?" His eyes were twinkling at her.

"Oh, uh. You can take it, certainly," she answered.

They cleaned up, making minor small talk until silence stretched between them.

"Would you like me to stay outside tonight?" he finally asked her.

She put the towel over her shoulder to put it into the dirty pile for later. Then she turned to him. "You can sleep on the sofa tonight. I mean no offense, but I don't think I want your wolf in my room. A wolf with the mind of a man in my room is... not comfortable. But you don't have to leave, for now. I can't make a decision yet, but again... I don't feel right with throwing you out. I didn't save you to throw you to your death."

They went to bed, and she woke the next morning to find him in wolf form on the floor. She had to fight the urge to pet him. Then she felt awkward about having petted him. It just seemed somehow extremely personal all of a sudden.

She got ready for her day as quietly as she could, buckled her gun on, and headed out the door. She heard him get up, and looked over at him. "I assume you can make your own breakfast?"

He thumped his tail in agreement. Then he cocked his head and looked at her gun. He sat down and looked up at her face.

She sighed. "Listen, I don't know what you got me into, but Louisiana is an open carry state, and it brings me comfort. If someone figures out that you're here and decides to take it out on me, I'm not going down without a fight."

She slipped out the door into the garage. As she got into the car, he came out in his pants, his chest distractingly bare.

"Sky, let me come with you," he told her. "I can protect you. Some of what's out there-" He shook his head. "Let me help. I'm the reason you're in this."

"Alcide, I'm going to work. I can't drag a dog around with me everywhere I go! I need to live my life in a relatively normal way!"

"Sky..." He sighed. "I know you do a great job of taking care of yourself. But there are things that guns don't kill-"

"There's more?" She shook her head, waving a hand at him. "No. I don't want to know. We'll talk later. I'm going to work, and I promise I'll think on it all. Okay? That's the best I've got right now."

He looked sad, but nodded. "I'll be here. Please... just... be careful."

She opened the garage and he stepped back inside the house. He waved good-bye. Sky backed out and went to work.

Carlos greeted her with his usual uninterested over-the-head wave. A little later, he turned around.

"Whoa, you're packing heat today, huh? I mean, more than your deadly hot body and your to-die-for face..."

She turned on her stool. "Carlos, if you weren't gay, I'd marry you and disappoint the entire population of the Eastern United States except the hetero guys. And maybe them, too."

He grinned, "Compliments ain't going to get you out of explainin' the gun, girl, but you were close."

She ran her hand down her face, trying to clear the cobwebs and figure out a way to explain things. "There's this guy staying at my place. He's in some serious trouble and I worry it might rub off onto me."

He looked at her closely. "You like him."

She chuckled slightly. "He's a real gentleman, I think. From what I know of him so far. In fact, he's fairly near perfect. Aside from sort of lying to me to begin with and being kind of hovering. And he's got... a strange sort of... I dunno. Affliction, you might call it. But he's gorgeous. And he's kind."

"So aside from lying and smothering you and sort of having some kind of terrible disease, he's cute and he's sweet? Sounds perfect."

"Hey, that's not... entirely... right."

"Okay, sure. So you like him, and he's sweet and hot. So?"

"I sort of talked to him about..." she ducked her head and lowered her voice, "...milking anal glands."

"Oh, you didn't! Really? Tell me you're joking?"

"And I mentioned he should feed his wolf raw meat so his shit is harder."

Carlos stood there staring at her with his mouth hanging open. "Baby doll, you are a train wreck. You are!"

She buried her face in her hands. "God, I know, I know! I have no idea how to hold a conversation!"

"I know that's true. You couldn't hold a conversation if someone gave you a teleprompter."

"Well, it's not my fault! He was unconscious, so I just inspected him like I always do with all dogs!"

"Wait, you inspected Mr. Affliction? While he was unconscious?"

"The dog!"

"Oh! Oh..." he gave her a measuring, level look, "you found the owner of the wolf?"

"Sort of," she told him. "I can't talk about that."

He tilted his head at her and gave her a sly look. "Oh, right, right. Danger and whatnot. I read you, baby doll."

"I swear that if there's a more stupid conversational topic on the planet, I'd have found it. I'd think I broke some sort of cosmic law on how stupid a person can be in a talk with an attractive person; except that somehow, since he's kind of amazing, it seems impossible that I could do anything less grand than a fuckup so complete it boggles the minds of the very gods themselves."

"Zeus will probably smite you," he told her.

She giggled. "Or Aphrodite. Nothing says 'smite her for her stupidity in front of a hot guy' like the Goddess of Love, eh?"

The laser bell on the front door dinged and a woman came in with a small boy. They carried a cat carrier.

"Hi," the middle-aged woman said. "I'm Colleen, and this is Jack. We have an older cat, and he's been really acting up lately."

Sky asked her a few questions while she led them back into an examination room. She realized almost immediately that he had a urinary obstruction.

"I'm going to have to operate on him. Right now. Since he's already been like this for almost forty-eight hours, the chances of saving him are slim," she told the mom after asking the son to wait with Carlos for a few minutes.

"How much will that cost?" she asked tearfully.

"We'll talk about that afterward. I always work on a sliding scale. We'll find something you can afford."

"But you don't think it will work, do you?"

Sky looked at her, and then away. "It's unlikely. But if he dies, I won't charge you for the surgery at all."

She sniffled. "Okay. If you can help him, please do."

Sky nodded. "Go take your son over to get some ice cream. It will take several hours."

Three hours later, she finished the surgery. It had required opening the cat up to insert a catheter. He had been severely out of balance. She used everything she knew to do, but in the end, as she patched him back up and waited for him to come out of the anesthesia, she felt it was the end of him.

She'd tried a new use for her own invention. She wasn't sure how it would work, but these surgeries almost never lasted with male cats. Once they got an obstruction, it was almost inevitable that they died. And this cat was severely unbalanced due to the inability of his kidneys to function for two days.

She brought Colleen back into the room when the woman arrived back, asking Carlos to stay with Jack again. "Colleen, please listen. I think the only thing I've managed here is for him to die at home with you and Jack, where he's loved and it's not cold and clinical. It's extremely rare for a cat to survive with an obstruction of forty-eight hours. And it's almost certain that he will get another obstruction very soon. If he does live, you have to transition him onto a raw meat diet. If you fail to do that, he'll be back here for the same reason, or die before he can make it."

She took the other woman's hands in hers. "I'm sorry. I've done the best I know how. From here it's up to him."

Colleen nodded, tears running down her face.

"We'll bill you. When you get the bill, don't freak out, just come in and we'll find a way to make it affordable, okay?"

She said 'okay' on a sob and carried the cat carrier out to the foyer. Jack leaped up and came to see.

"Is he still alive?"

"He's still alive for now, Jack. That's all I can tell you."

"Thank you, thank you!" he cried, hugging her.

They left and Sky sat down heavily.

"He ain't gonna make it," Carlos said sadly.

Sky shook her head. "But he'll die with the people who love him."

She drove home in the enforced silence of the car, vowing to get her stereo fixed that week. She checked quickly around the house but didn't see Alcide anywhere. She went into her room and flopped face-first onto the bed and finally let herself cry.

"Sky?"

She sat up, embarrassed. "Oh, hi, I didn't see you in the house," she said. She searched for a tissue but the box was empty.

He disappeared from the doorway and then returned with the tissue box from the bathroom. He sat down on the bed beside her.

"Want to talk about it?" he asked.

"I...did surgery... on a cat today... he... probably... won't make it..." she said between sobs. "Little boy's... pet..." She couldn't explain further.

He hugged her against him. She tried to stop crying, tried to stop thinking about Jack and Colleen losing their pet. Tried to stop thinking about how much poor 'Jet' must have hurt before he was brought into her office.

Eventually, she quit crying. Her sorrow spent, she sat up, clutching the tissues.

Alcide got up and walked into the other room. She heard him in the bathroom, but was still surprised when Marrok appeared in the doorway. She supposed she should stop calling him that, or thinking of him that way.

She stood up and reached for the brush. "Can I brush you?" she asked him, uncertain as to how to proceed. Did one ask such a thing of a werewolf?

He thumped his tail once, and she chuckled. "I guess that's a 'yes' still?" He thumped it again and she headed for the couch. When she got there, she invited him into her lap and he laid across her while she watched TV and brushed 'his wolf'.

She found she was still confused as to how to speak of him, or even to him, now that she knew the difference. But stroking the brush along his fur was comforting. Finally, when her show was over, she explained the situation a little better. She had a cat come in, who was probably going to die despite her best efforts. It made her feel hopeless and lost.

On days like this, she wanted to go work at McDonald's. Or Arby's. Or a clothing store.

He licked her face and she laughed. "We're going to have to talk about this licking thing, sir."

He jumped down from the sofa and padded back into the bathroom. A few minutes later, Alcide appeared, sitting on the sofa beside her. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, and it distracted her for a few seconds.

"I'm sorry you had a tough day," he told her.

She smiled. "Thanks. And thank you. Brushing... uh..." What should she say? You? Marrok? Your wolf? She floundered, uncertain.

"Marrok?"

She took a deep breath. "Yeah. It was comforting." She handed him the remote. "I'll start some dinner. Thank you for not trying to fix things and not saying I was silly for crying over something I couldn't change."

"Why would I do that?" he asked.

She looked at him in surprise, and then laughed. "I think it's one of the rules on the 'man card', isn't it?"

"Lest I lose my standing with men everywhere," he answered, "let me inform you that I didn't say anything because I don't know how to help, and not because I was trying to be sensitive. Do you think that will suitably reinstate my man card?"

"I can't answer that, or I'll be issued a 'bitch' card, and probably never recover my self esteem." She grinned at the look on his face. "Let's just leave it at this; I don't think you could do the 'insensitive prick' thing well if you tried. Personally, I'm good with that."

He shook his head. "Amazing how different women can be from each other. I think Debbie would be shocked to hear anyone say that about me."

"Debbie must be dumber than she was acting when she was here. And that's pretty dumb." She turned to look at him, "Sorry. I guess you had a relationship with her, or you wouldn't have said that. I guess I was applying for the 'insensitive prick' position, myself."

"It's okay. We were engaged. I was really in love with her, but she ran off with the leader of another pack. She got tangled up in drugs and violence. She cheated on me a couple times before that, but I forgave her." He leaned back against her counter.

She tried not to stare. He looked almost out of place, like a bit of the untamed wilderness had strolled in and parked itself in her kitchen. His unruly hair and the growth of beard on his face lent him an aura of looming danger that was at odds with all she'd seen of his personality so far.

"And she thought you were insensitive?"

"Yeah. She always thought I was looking at other women. I couldn't even have female friends, or she'd think I was banging them."

Sky raised her eyebrows. "You know why, right?"

"I guess I didn't make her feel very secure," he answered. "I did try, though."

She shook her head. "No, Alcide. It wasn't that. There are two reasons," she said. She raised her hands and ticked them off as she spoke, "Number one, because cheaters know how easy it is to get away with cheating, so they always expect it. Number two, because you were too good for her, and she knew it. So she expected you to wise up and realize it any second."

"You think I was too good for her?" he asked.

She put her hands on her hips. "Now you're just fishing for compliments, girlie-man," she told him with a grin.

"I wasn't," he said, "but if you're giving them out, I won't refuse."

"I'll try to think of one before dinner's ready."

"Ah, if it's going to take you that long, I hope it's a good one."

"Probably not. When I get hungry all the blood leaves my brain and goes to helping my stomach scream bloody murder. Any idea what you might like for dinner?"

They made spaghetti.


	5. Intuition

_Chapter 4 kind of got twice as long as I expected, so... I split it into two, lol. Sorry for the delay._

_Thanks again for the totally awesome reviews!_

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><p><strong>5. Intuition<strong>

In the middle of dinner, Sky's phone rang. She talked to Colleen for a couple of minutes, then hung up.

"Jet died?"

She nodded, putting her fork down.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

She nodded again, then got up and cleaned up her plate. Putting the extra she hadn't eaten into a container, she closed the fridge and went outside. She wished that she could comfort Jack, but of course, that was his mom's job.

She walked the length of the fence, stopping in the back, trying to ward off the chill with her own arms. A low fog had rolled in, and the air was damp with the clinging fingers of pale mist. The trees loomed in the darkness like malevolent, judging spirits.

The wooden fence was damp, and she tried not to lean on it as water penetrated her clothes simply from the damp air. The stars overhead twinkled with the same venomous judgment as the trees, and she felt a growing sense of unease.

She looked around, finding nothing amiss. Yet the sense of being watched and judged increased. But with it came a nearly supernatural sense of impending, expectant doom. Never given to flights of fancy, Sky shivered and stepped backward. She half expected something evil to rush out of the woods at her, devour her, and be gone before it was ever seen.

Turning, she raced for the house. The yard had never looked so long before, and as she pushed herself in a sprint, it seemed as if the house retreated from her, elusive as if in a dream. Dread consumed her, and she nearly cried out with the intensity of it.

Instants ticked by with the speed of molasses as she ran, looking back. She swore she saw eyes looking at her over the fence. She reached the house and tore the door open, slamming it and locking it. She ran for the front, knowing she looked wild-eyed and crazy.

She locked the deadbolt and even the lock on the door.

She ran from window to window, making sure they were closed and locked.

"Sky?" Alcide asked.

She stopped, panting. She looked at him, embarrassed. "Something's out there. Some... evil... something. I could feel it." She shivered again and suddenly the house felt like a trap. "We have to get out of here!"

She ran for the garage.

"Sky... what-"

"I don't know! I... I don't know. But I'm going. You can stay if you want."

"No, I'm coming with you," he said. "It's a full moon tonight, though, so I... it's going to be hard for me."

"Oh god. Are you going to eat me?"

He shook his head. "No, it's just... hard. Just trust me."

She didn't need to be told twice. She didn't want to know.

"We have to go now!" she blurted. She grabbed her keys and scrambled into the car. Opening the garage door, she backed out. She barely remembered to close it before peeling out and racing away.

She looked in the rearview mirror and saw multiple sets of eyes glittering in the darkness. Alcide saw them as well, and she heard distantly the sound of a wolf call.

Alcide groaned and she saw the beginning of the change in his eyes. He gripped his head, and she floored it. The little Nissan roared in protest. Then, as if sensing her urgency, it dropped into passing drive and leaped forward as if the hounds of hell itself were on its bumper.

Sky wasn't entirely sure that was wrong.

In the meantime, Alcide was groaning and twisting in the passenger seat.

"Stop," he muttered at her, groaning again as if in deepest torment.

She wanted to disobey, but knew that she could be putting them both in danger. So she slowed and started to pull over. She hadn't stopped before he jumped out and ran, tearing at his shirt. She grabbed his door, swung it shut, and roared away, pushing the Nissan for every ounce of go it had in it.

She spent the night at a hotel, afraid to go home. Her gun sat beside her on the other pillow.

The next day, she was afraid to go to work, but did. The first thing she did was send Carlos home. She told him to take the next day off, too, unless she called him. He looked prepared at first to argue, then saw the tense, exhausted look on her face.

"Sure thing, baby doll," he answered.

"Carlos? Don't worry, I'll pay you," she said.

"I appreciate that. I do got bills."

She nodded. "Be safe."

He left.

She sat huddled behind the desk until afternoon. The door laser dinged and she looked up in surprise, fear the first response.

An animal control officer came in. "We got an injured fox. Think you could get it up and ready to go back out into the wild?"

"I'll take a look," she answered. She took the man's card and rolled the cage back into a waiting room.

The door dinged again a few minutes later, and she tensed. She half expected Debbie or Marcus after the night before. But it was Jack, and she felt relieved, but sad.

"Hi Jack. I'm so sorry that I couldn't save Jet," she told him.

He was smiling, though. "He's alive, ma'am," he said. His smile fell a little. "Momma lied because she said that if he died, we wouldn't owe you anything. I'm real sorry. I got this five dollars I was saving up to get a baseball glove. I want you to have it for saving him." He walked up to the desk.

Sky wanted to say 'no'. It was his five dollars and a baseball glove was a worthy goal. But she could see the pride and the stubbornness on his face.

Then she thought of something. "I know you really want that glove, don't you?"

His lip trembled slightly, but he said, "Jet's worth it."

"I'll tell you what. I have a few things going on right now, but maybe you could come in next week and help me a little. That would pay it back even better. Just simple chores to help out. I've got a fox that just came in, and he'll need someone to help cut up his food."

"Really? That would be great!" he said.

"You have to ask your mom," she warned him. "I want a letter from her saying it's okay for you to help out. You don't have to say I know about Jet, though. We'll keep that between us."

His face fell. "I don't think she'll let me," he said.

"Well, we'll see then, okay? Sometimes parents surprise us."

Well, hers didn't. But some people's parents could surprise them.

He promised to come back on Monday, to let her know one way or the other. She went back in and prepared a syringe to tranquilize the fox.

"Please don't put me to sleep," a voice said.

She jumped so badly she nearly jabbed herself. She stared at the naked man in the cage, crushed up into it awkwardly and obviously in a great deal of pain.

"What, now there are werefoxes, too?" she demanded.

"Well, no," he told her. "I'm a shapeshifter."

"If I let you out, are you going to hurt me?"

"No! I'm wounded, anyway. Please let me out, this is a really painful position. I'm not sure I can shift back in this kind of pain."

So she let him out, saying as she opened the lock, "I warn you, I am armed."

He climbed out, and she looked away.

"Can you sew me up? Please?"

"You're a human, not an animal. I don't work on humans!" She walked over and pulled one of her lab coats out, holding it behind her for him to grab.

"Please? If I go to the hospital with such a strange wound, they'll want to know why and how. I'll probably be arrested or something. Please?"

"Okay," she finally relented. "I'll look and do my best."

He sat down and she gave him another coat to drape over his lap as she lifted the coat to look at the ragged wound in his side.

"My name is-"

"Don't tell me. Please. I don't want to know. I can't take anymore supernatural stuff. Just... let me do this and then go."

She injected him with a local that she knew was safe for humans, and proceeded to suture his wound. It was deep, but it was all in muscle tissue as far as she could tell. In an animal, it would be a wound that would heal acceptably and probably leave little more than a scar.

Finally, she was done. "I used dissolving stitches," she told him. "They'll go away on their own, you don't need me to take them out."

"Thanks," he said. "Say, I hate to ask this, since you've been so helpful already, but would it been too much to get a ride to Merlotte's? I think a taxi might deny me service if I'm wearing just a white lab coat. You can have anything you want from the menu, my treat."

The alternative, she realized, was going home. She nodded. "Okay. My car's out back."

She cleaned up the room and locked the front door. She got in the car, not looking at him. "I guess you just as well tell me your name, then." She sighed as she said it.

"Sam Merlotte," he answered. "Nice to meet you."

She pulled up close to the trailer house he indicated, and he rushed from the car inside the trailer. She parked and went inside the restaurant. The blond waitress looked at her very strangely as she sat down. "Sam was injured?"

Sky looked at her. She hadn't said anything at all about that, why would she be asking her?

"I know you didn't say anything about it, but it's true, isn't it?"

"He's fine. I sewed him up, though I usually only work with animals." She didn't add, 'not naked men,' but the waitress giggled as if she had.

Of course, the thought of a naked man brought her mind straight back to Alcide, appearing stark naked in her living room the night Eric showed up.

"Oh my god! Is that Alcide?" the waitress hissed at her.

Panic rose in Sky. She had just exposed his hiding place. Provided he ever came back after last night.

"No, no. Don't worry. But come on, we have to talk."

Sky found herself dragged almost bodily from her seat by the blond waitress. Everyone was staring at them and Sky felt mortification setting in. She hated more than anything to be stared at.

"You get used to it."

Right, and bricks fell from heaven every second Tuesday of the month.

The blond giggled. "I sure hope not."

"Okay," the blond said, closing the door to what was obviously an office. "How do you know Alcide?"

It was clear the woman could read minds, so Sky did the best she could to think of something else. She thought of how thrilled she was that Jet was alive. She thought of how sweet Jack was to offer her money for the surgery.

"Wait. I get that you don't trust me, but it's okay. I'm Sookie."

She said it like it was supposed to be significant. Sky thought about Orion and the time her mom had showed it to her.

"Please stop that," Sookie said. "Just tell me what you know about Alcide. I'm his friend. He's never mentioned me?"

Inadvertently, Sky thought of Debbie's visit to the house.

"Debbie? I hate that bitch. She tried to kill me and Bill. You should have shot her."

The door opened and Sam came in. "Sookie, can't you just get her something to eat? Leave her alone, she's the new vet."

"Oh, well, I didn't know that meant I couldn't talk to her," Sookie said.

Sky thought she was rude.

"You're not the first one to think that, and you won't be the last one," Sookie answered the unspoken thought.

Sky got up and focused this time on an image of a lotus flower. It was her favorite image and she often used it to go to sleep at night.

Sookie huffed. "Fine. But if you hurt him, I'll kill you."

Sky's rage flickered white-hot for an instant. If she knew Debbie, and knew how much she had hurt him, then she really couldn't claim she'd 'kill' anyone who hurt him.

"I beat the shit out of her," Sookie told her. "Cut her up pretty badly. And if you did the shit she did, I'd do it to you, too."

Sky could almost like her for that. She went back to lotus flowers.

Sam gestured out the door. "Shall we grab something to eat?"

Sky almost asked for someone else to wait on them, because she didn't like being invaded.

"Don't worry, I don't do it all the time. It was an accident it even happened this time."

Sky focused really, really hard on that lotus flower.

Sam, she found, was a likeable, amenable fellow. He asked her about her work, and why she chose Bon Temps. He asked about her house and how she was settling in.

She almost forgot about the shapeshifting, the werewolves, the vampires, and the mind-reading waitresses.

But eventually, she had to go home. So she gathered up her courage and her purse.

"Sam, you should go home with her," Sookie said as she picked up Sky's plate.

Sky glared, but the unrepentant blond shrugged. "She's scared," she finished, looking at Sam.

"What?" Sam asked. "Really?"

"Werewolves last night," Sookie supplied.

Sky sighed and dropped her head into her hand, looking through her fingers at Sam. "Do you ever have normal conversations around her?"

"Only when she's napping or if Bill's around," he answered with a grin. Then he sobered. "I'll follow you. If there were werewolves around last night, you might need the help."

She decided not to argue. At least someone knew he was with her, so if something happened, they'd know who she'd left with. So she got in her car and let him follow her home, not remarking on the fact that he was injured and would probably not be a lot of help.

She decided to go in through the front door. She opened the door, Sam beside her.

Stepping inside, she found the interior in shambles. All of the boxes had been thrown down, the sofa was rent, the TV destroyed. They had urinated on the walls and the boxes, as well. Dishes lay broken on the kitchen floor, and the freezer and fridge were open, the contents as often spilled out as left intact.

The back door was hanging on a hinge, claw marks on it.

Everything was destroyed.


	6. Piddles Intervenes

_Hi again everyone! Thank you all for reading. Let me apologize for the long wait on an update. We are remodeling our kitchen soon and we have loads of choices to make (and hopefully get right). As we come down to the wire, some things are becoming immediate and imperative._

_Thanks so much for the awesome reviews! And lots of favorites, too, which I appreciate also. :)_

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><p><strong>6. Piddles Intervenes<strong>

Alcide regretted it all. He should have let Eric glamor her, and run for the hills. But he hadn't. And why not? Because he didn't want to lose her. He'd tried to say it wasn't fair to her, but really, it had been sheer personal desire to be around her.

In some ways, she'd given him the simple things that Debbie had frequently deprived him of; affection and acceptance. Even the most uncomfortable moments with her had an underlying current of consideration, thoughtfulness, and sincere caring.

He had craved it, and endangered her.

So he walked into Fangtasia by the employee's entrance. He kept to the shadows and crept quietly... he had no clothes. If anyone came through that entrance, he would be in trouble.

"Well, this is delicious," a voice said behind him. "Can I have a bite?"

It was Pam, of course. Alcide turned to face her. "I need clothes and I need to talk to Eric." He hated dealing with the vicious, unpredictable vampire. He was urbane and charming one second, and struck faster than any viper on the planet between one breath and the next. But he had no choice.

Ten minutes later, he was trying to get Eric to understand his point of view, and meeting brick walls everywhere he turned. No matter his explanation or reason, Eric countered it, point by point. It was frustrating in the extreme.

"Alcide, if I glamor her, she will still be hunted," Eric concluded. "She just won't know why."

Alcide was cornered. He couldn't get past that one.

The one thing he wanted was for her to be safe, and the one thing he'd taken away from her was her safety.

"Where is she now?" Eric asked, interrupting Alcide's inner reflection.

"I... don't know," Alcide answered. "The pack tore her house apart. I don't have any idea where she'd go from there."

"Well," Eric told him, "I guess you should make it your priority to find her. Do you not think so?"

"If I go around her, they'll smell me. If I stay away and the smell grows fainter, they may leave her alone," he argued.

Eric sighed. "Very well. I will see if I can locate her." He picked up the phone and gave the man on the other end of the line some information on Sky.

"In the meantime," he told Alcide after hanging up the phone, "you should go find a place to stay. Try a hotel." He gave Alcide another credit card with the reminder that he would owe Eric once the whole thing was over.

He hated it, but he had no choice.

It took four days for Eric to call him, and Alcide was exhausted from checking hotels. So far he had found nothing, anywhere. No one had even seen a woman answering her description.

So when the phone rang, he grabbed it eagerly, desperate for word of her.

"My man found her," Eric said without preamble. "It wasn't easy. She's staying at the Coff Inn."

"The vampire hotel?" Alcide asked stupidly. "The one here in Shreveport?"

"Yes. But you could have easily found her on your own. The only reason he figured out that she was staying there was that he tailed her from work."

"She's been going to work?" Alcide had to sit down. What had possessed the woman to go to work!

"He tailed her to find out where she was staying. Not only was the area's vampire hotel the last place he would have looked, but she paid in cash, as well. By the way, this won't be cheap. She's canny, this vet of yours. Not bad for a human."

The phone went dead.

Alcide sat it down.

He wanted to go find her immediately. But a werewolf walking into a vampire hotel? It would never happen in a million years. Which, of course, made it the perfect hiding spot when one was possibly being hunted by werewolves.

He shook his head. He had underestimated her. He suspected that the other weres had as well. Which was only to the good for her and for him, both. Yet on the other hand, the use of the vamp hotel could only protect her until the funds to stay there ran out. It wasn't cheap, by any stretch of imagination, and there was no way that she made enough money as a small town vet to pay that kind of bill for long.

But for now, he was stuck. He could do nothing. He couldn't walk into a vamp hotel any more than any other were could. Even his scent on her could have endangered her, though she probably hadn't thought of that.

He paced and worked out for most of the night. It was a long night as hour stacked on top of hour—a teetering skyscraper waiting to fall on the unsuspecting.

When morning came, he woke to the first rosy pink light of dawn. He wondered idly if the vamp hotel had a continental breakfast for their human guests, and rightly guessed that there were doubtless few to none there—and most would be on their vamp masters' schedules.

So he went to the veterinary clinic. He realized for the first time that he hadn't even known the name of her place of work: Under the Round Table. It seemed that Sky had an affection for the Arthurian legends. He hadn't even known about Marrok, and one would think the legend of a famous werewolf would be among the first told in his own culture.

Several hours passed and at last he saw her in the door, turning the sign around.

Looking around, he carefully sniffed the air. Warm currents indicated the first weakening of winter, but the air betrayed no presence of werewolves. Of course they could be downwind, so he was wary as he got out and approached the glass front windows of the store.

She wasn't inside that he could see. Deeply concerned and fearful of a trap, he opened the door. The laser set off the sensor and it chimed cheerfully. Sky's voice came from within, "I'll be right there!"

She walked out, and she smelled like lavender soap and tea tree oil. Her hair glowed with health, though she looked worried and drawn. She seemed distracted, though somehow, he found the doctor coat to be sexy because it drew attention to her face.

She had a puppy in her arms and was carrying a carrier. She sat the carrier down and then the puppy, patting it on the head. "Try to behave, Piddles," she said to the puppy. Then she looked up and saw Alcide.

He was surprised and almost stunned when her delicate, pretty face lit up with welcome.

"You're okay!" she greeted him. "I was worried." Then she stood in the hallway, wringing her hands as the puppy grabbed her coat and tugged on it. Bending down, she said, "Oh no, honey, don't do that. Here, this is your toy." She gave him a chewy toy, which he ignored in favor of her coat hem again.

"I couldn't find you," he told her. "I looked everywhere-"

She raised an eyebrow, cutting him off, "Not everywhere. I was here every day."

"I didn't think you'd be foolish enough to come in to work every day," he told her, then wanted to kick himself the minute the words came out.

But she just laughed. "Come now, Alcide. I'm on the edge of a business district and a residential district. Four houses down is Mrs. Charles, who snoops into everything. Two blocks away and around the corner is Mrs. Fortenberry, who wants me to 'steal her son from that vampire'. And across the street from me is Melody Fischer, who thinks that my shop is going to become so loud that no one will ever come to her pottery shop again.

"Are the werewolves really going to risk attacking me at such an exposed location in broad daylight with three busybodies around?"

He was grinning by the time she was done. "I didn't realize life was so hard here," he joked.

Her eyes twinkled. "It's a trial, believe me."

He took a risk and went over and hugged her, releasing her quickly. "I was worried," he admitted.

She blinked at him for a few seconds before smiling slightly. "I was, too." Then, her hands wringing again, she said, "You're a touchy-feely kind of person, aren't you?" It was obviously meant to be a joke, but it came out a bit high pitched.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I guess it's the wolf in me. We're all like that."

"Well, thank god you didn't sniff my crotch while in wo-" She stopped abruptly, turning bright red. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh dear. I did it again. I... I am so sorry!"

He laughed. "Even among werewolves, that's considered rude," he told her. He couldn't help but think how adorable she was when she was flustered. Which, admittedly, was fairly frequently.

"I... of course. I shouldn't have-"

He stepped closer to her and cut her off with a kiss. He meant it to be a short, sweet peck on the lips so he could ask her out for breakfast without her running off in embarrassment first. But when his lips touched hers, she jumped slightly, then her lips parted. He decided to take the invitation—intentional or not.

He slid an arm around her, and she melted against him, the cloth of her coat jiggling against his arm from the puppy's diligent play. She smelled even better up close, and she tasted sweet, with the underlying flavor of toothpaste.

Her heartbeat was thunder to his heightened hearing, and the air was heavy with the smell of her body and the heat of her skin. He tasted her sweetness and felt her breasts pressed against him. Her breathing deepened and she responded to his kiss with a surprising eagerness.

But it went beyond that. He had kissed women before, even wanted to marry Debbie. His wolf had remained uninterested in them beyond 'female'. This time, though, as he kissed Sky, he felt something he had never felt before. His wolf half roared to life, hungry and filled with a possessive longing.

His wolf's ravenous lust drove into him, and he tightened his grip on Sky. A low growl rose in his throat as he felt her and smelled her and tasted her. Her ragged breathing ignited him in ways he hadn't felt since he was a teenager.

He felt as eager as she seemed.

His hand ran down to her butt, pressing her against his erection. He felt an overwhelming, stifling rage at the clothes between them, and barely recognized that it was his wolf. His wolf wanted to own her, to take her, to possess her. He wanted the same and had no power to resist the wolf, especially since he found no hesitation in her, either.

He was dragged out of it in the most mundane way.

The puppy peed on his foot.

Dragging himself back from her, he found his own breathing was harsh and deep. He looked at her and found her eyes half closed, a sensual, stunned look on her face. He almost didn't care about the puppy... his wolf was howling and growling in his mind like a demented banshee.

"The puppy peed on me," he told her, his voice husky and thick with lust.

She blinked at him a few times, then surprise, followed by embarrassed horror spread across her face. She jumped away.

"Oh my god! Oh god! No, Piddles!" she picked the puppy up, extricating him carefully from his new grip on Alcide's pant leg. He went into the puppy carrier with a protesting yelp as he scrabbled at the bars, trying to get back at his new toy. "Oh, I should have put him away right away! That's why I call him Piddles. I had to give him a saline IV and now he's peeing every couple of minutes. I'm so sorry, I got distracted, I-"

"It's okay, Sky. I'm not the first person to be peed on by a puppy."

"That's for sure. I get peed on so often that I barely notice it anymore." She stopped her flustered motions for a moment. "Oh, that didn't come out right." She shook her head. "I would just shut up now that I've eaten both of my feet and one of yours, too, except that I happen to have some of your clothes here, still. There's another pair of mocassins in the bunch if you want them."

She hunkered up slightly. "I mean, I have clothes I bought for you. Here. At the store. And there's a spot where you can clean your leg. And foot. Because... you... you got peed on. At my store." Her voice trailed off and she cleared her throat.

He stood watching her, trying to recover his equilibrium. His wolf was agitated, restless, and hungry—though not for food. He'd heard other weres speak that way about their wolves, but he'd never experienced it prior to Sky. He thought they'd been exaggerating, or maybe even making it up. Especially since most of them seemed to have it happen regarding every female that crossed their path.

He smiled at her when she finally quit talking. "I'd like those moccasins and pants, thank you."

She jumped so badly she startled him. "Oh! Oh, of course! God, what is wrong with me!" She rushed back into one of the rooms and came back with some packages. "Over here," she gestured and led him into a room clearly intended for bathing animals.

She dropped the packages on a steel counter and put some scissors beside them. "I'll just, uh... I'll be out front. With Piddles. In his container." Then she bolted so fast Alcide thought she might have left scorch marks from her passing.

He stood in the room for a long moment, smiling. She was hilarious and delightful and sexy as hell. His smile faded though, as deep in the recess of his mind where the wolf lived for most of the month, the beast snarled his dissatisfaction. Alcide had let the woman go without claiming her, and his wolf was furious and disgusted. The female was ready. The female smelled of sex and lust and welcome. The female was eager and the human half not aggressive enough.

Alcide accepted the censure with a sigh. The wolf didn't understand, human society wasn't like wolf society. The wolf didn't care. He wanted the woman.

Alcide pointed out that there were other women. There was Debbie. There was Sookie, who was fantastic in every way except for being vamp-smitten.

Debbie, the wolf informed him, was not Sky. Sookie, while she smelled nice, was also not Sky. And Debbie, the wolf communicated, was a bitch—and not in the wolf way. Then it went completely silent again and would commune with him no longer.


	7. Rivals

_First, if I missed replying to your review, please forgive me. I tried to go back through and get everyone. I lost track of where I was when I last replied. I hugely enjoy your reviews and truly try not to miss replying. :)_

_Also, just FYI, I know this one's long, but I decided to make two short ones into one long one since we lost power thanks to Irene today. Hope you enjoy!_

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><p><strong>7. Rivals<strong>

If she hadn't wanted to fall over after the whole 'glands' business, she sure did now. But she was distracted from that fact by that kiss. And what a kiss it was! She put her fingers to her lips, as if to recapture it.

She'd been kissed before many times. She'd even been kissed aggressively before, and it had just angered her. This kiss, though... he would probably run for the hills thanks to being peed on and her apparent penchant for stupid remarks. Even if he did, she'd die a happy death.

That kiss had been somehow personal. Like he was kissing her, and not just some pretty chick who he hoped would spread it that night if he could convince her to. And it had been intimate, too... she could still feel his erection pressing against her belly, almost. She probably should have been offended or something.

She wanted to lock the door and rip his clothes off. If she remembered to lock the door first...

"Thanks," he said from the hallway behind her, making her jump. "I'm still amazed how you got my sizes right on everything."

That made her look at him to see if she really had, and the pants fit perfectly. Then she realized she was staring at his pants. And no doubt, looking like a dumbstruck calf.

Her eyes snapped to his face, and she was relieved to find him looking at the back of the pants.

"I think I've left a tag on them," he said. "I can't find it."

Being Sky, she couldn't stop herself from offering to help. Then she wanted to kick herself. The last thing she wanted was to be looking down his pants. She wanted to be taking them off, certainly—but not looking down them and digging around for a store tag!

She found it quickly, though, and snipped it with a pair of scissors. She would be relieved, except she could feel the skin of his back burning against her fingers.

"You're always so hot," she muttered.

"I'm a werewolf," he answered. "We're all like that."

She grinned at him. "Oh, I assure you, neither Debbie nor Marcus are as hot as you."

He laughed. "I'm not going to ask you where you put _their_ thermometers."

Her mouth fell open, as she tried to think of something clever to say in answer to that, but she failed. So she just shrugged and finally said, "I can't tell you, it's a secret."

"Maybe you'd have breakfast with me, instead? Provided your boss ever lets you out of this place..." He was smiling as he said it.

"She lets me out once a year whether I need it or not. She'd let me out more often, but she's afraid I'll embarrass her. Which I really don't understand... I can do that just fine right here. I'll be right back."

This time, she picked Piddles up and took him back into his cage. For her trouble, this time it was her that he peed on. She sighed, grateful for lab coats. But the urine had gone down into the sleeve and onto her shirt.

She walked back out. "Alcide?" He turned back from the windows and she was again struck by how handsome he was as he stood silhouetted against the light. "Do you mind if I use one of these shirts? Piddles...piddled."

"Of course not. You bought them," he pointed out sanguinely.

"But I bought them for you," she argued. "I'll be right out. Again."

She grabbed a package and headed into the back. It turned out to be the red plaid. She didn't bother to unbutton it all the way, instead pulling it on over her head. She was tall for a woman, some five foot eight [172 cm], but she still swam in it. Sighing, she went back out and found him standing outside beside a rental car.

He opened the door for her and she got in. They arrived a few minutes later at Merlotte's.

"Is this place open twenty-four hours?" she asked with a chuckle.

"I don't really know," Alcide answered.

"That's okay," Sky said. "I was just making conversation anyway."

They went inside where they were met once more by Sookie.

"Alcide!" Sookie flounced over to them and hurtled herself into his arms. Sky stifled a jealous reflex.

But Sookie pulled away. "Did you just growl at me?"

Sky hadn't heard anything. And when he kissed her, she'd very clearly heard it. The jealousy rumbled deeper. But then she was distracted herself.

"Sky? You look great," Sam said as he came up behind her. "Not staying at that house, are you?"

He gave her a hug, and she noted a few things all at once. First was that she was getting more hugs in one day than she'd gotten in any single month before coming here since... she couldn't remember when. And secondly, she noticed that his hug held the warmth of someone gentle and comforting and somehow familiar.

She was surprised to find that she reacted to his hug with an attraction that, while more subtle than what she felt for Alcide, was almost as strong. She stepped back when Alcide growled, this time out loud. To her surprise, Sam glared over her shoulder as he stepped back.

Confusion warred in her, and she realized that a part of her recognized the unavailability of Alcide, especially knowing that he was attracted to Sookie. She knew what him growling meant, she wasn't stupid. And beside the petite, delicate blond, Sky knew she was practically a lumbering, ungainly giant.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked quietly of Sam.

He nodded. "It was excellent work," he answered, also quietly. He smiled and told Sookie, "Get them whatever they want. I'm buying."

"Sure thing, Boss," Sookie answered, leading Sky and Alcide to a table.

"What can I get you to drink?" she asked. Then she looked at Alcide. "Will you stop that?"

Sky hated these 'conversations' with Sookie.

"It's not me, it's my wolf," Alcide said very softly and quietly.

"I thought you are the wolf," Sookie told him, raising an eyebrow.

"Sort of," he answered. "Technically that's correct, I guess. But he has his own thoughts and opinions."

"Well, tell him to stop it," she told him, a bit crossly.

Sky looked around the restaurant, trying to ignore the pair across from her. What had she been thinking, anyway? A kiss wasn't marriage. She'd been kissed by insincere men enough over to years not to make such a stupid, childish mistake. Falling for a guy just because you like his wolf... well, that was certainly a new one.

Then she remembered where she was and put aside her thoughts entirely, focusing on the lotus bloom floating on a still pond. She didn't want to share her misery with Sookie. It was none of her business.

"Drink?" Sookie prodded her.

"Oh, bottled water and a Lemon soda, please."

"Sprite okay?"

"Sure," Sky agreed. Then she turned to Alcide, who wasn't looking at her, and she felt suddenly gouche and foolish. But she decided to try, anyway. "So, you never did tell me how you got injured," she asked him, hoping to prompt conversation.

"No," he answered. "And I probably shouldn't do it here. It's not really the right place or time. Too many people around."

Sky tried to melt into the booth. She managed somehow not to bang her head on it and call herself an idiot. Of course he was right. Would there ever be a time she didn't say the absolute most stupid possible thing in any social experience?

"Of course," she answered. "That's why I usually spend my time around animals. You can say anything you want around them, and they never tell."

Then she sighed. "Or that's what I used to believe. Of course, not so much anymore." She was irritated with him. He chastised her for asking about how he was injured—and she'd not said 'shout' out loud—but he hadn't said a single thing when Sookie carried on about 'his wolf' right in front of god and everybody.

She sighed, quietly, trying not to let her distress project itself. She wondered why she set herself up for failure with men so often. It didn't have to be like that, yet it was, time and again. So she had retreated to the safety of her vet's office. Cats and dogs didn't used to be humans, just their own kind of people.

"Pardon me," she said. "I need the ladies' room."

She stood up just as Sookie walked up with their drinks. She gave her order and then went to the bathroom. There, she leaned on the bathroom sink, pain running somewhere along the vicinity of her heart.

Alcide liked blonds. He liked petite, delicate little blonds, to make matters better. Sky wasn't blond, wasn't petite, and wasn't short.

Taking a deep breath, she stood up. She was a fool and she knew it, but it didn't usually hurt so much. She felt like a fool as a tear slipped down her cheek. In fairness, she tried to remind herself, she'd lived with the wolf and the man in her home for weeks.

But that she would lose them both was inevitable. To harbor any other imagination was a vain dream. She washed her face, glad in a way that she didn't wear makeup at the clinic. Yet sorry in another way, because Sookie was always perfect made up. She was the diamond to Sky's pebble.

Sky finally got her emotions under control by focusing on the lotus. Then she went back out and sat down, offering no explanation for the lengthy bathroom trip.

Desperate to find something to talk about, she said, "So, Piddles was brought in after having been found wandering in downtown Bon Temps. So far as they've been able to determine, he's a stray. As things look now, I'll probably be taking him to Shreveport at the end of the week to the pound. It's a shame to save him only to have to do that. Maybe I'll see if Sam can ask around and find out if anyone's in the market for a puppy around here..."

Her voice trailed off. He was scowling at the table. She was surprised to see such a look on his face, as she'd seen him so even tempered and easy-going prior to that moment. So she sat, awkward and silent. After some time, when she could barely stand it anymore, she asked, "Did I do something wrong?"

"What could you possibly have done wrong?" he asked, sharp and irritated.

Taken aback, Sky said nothing. Somehow, she had angered him and she didn't know how or why. It was clear from his tone that she should know, but... apparently he didn't know her very well yet. She could step on a lizard's tail and fail to realize how she'd hurt him. Much less the complexities of human beings.

"Here you go," Sam said, placing plates in front of each of them.

Relieved to see a friendly face in the midst of her confusion and turbulence, Sky smiled at him. "Thank you."

He smiled back, his face lighting up with uncomplicated warmth. "Sure. You're welcome," he told her.

He walked away and Sky looked up to find Alcide glaring after him. He turned back to his food and ate.

**OoOoOoO**

Alcide ate quickly. His wolf was snarling and snapping and it was all Alcide could do not to get up and go over and beat the life out of the shapeshifter. The worst part was that there was some undercurrent between Sky and the other man that Alcide couldn't place. Or didn't want to.

It was Debbie all over again.

But the wolf placed the blame on Alcide. He wanted the woman. He had insisted, but Alcide hadn't listened. Now if they had competition, it was Alcide's fault. He'd had opportunity and obvious interest from the woman and hadn't followed through.

Pointing out that they didn't have the right did no good. The wolf didn't understand rights, or right... it understood that this was Sky and he wanted her and she wanted him and life wasn't really all that complex when it got right down to it. Not really.

The wolf was wrong, but couldn't be reasoned with in human terms. And it was upsetting. Alcide had never experienced his wolf acting like this, and he didn't like it. Plus, he wasn't so sure he liked Sky anymore, either. He'd smelled her response to the shapeshifter. That shapeshifters put out hormones when they were attracted to someone didn't make it any easier.

Somehow, Alcide thought, she should be immune to that. She'd faced down a vampire, two weres, and then had fled from the pack when they'd come to her home. She was something special. The wolf was disgusted with his train of thought. She was human. He could smell it. He could taste it. He could feel it. He'd have known if she were anything other than human, and he was being stupid.

He should just take her back to the hotel and claim her, because he was a wolf, and she smelled good and felt good and she wouldn't stop him. Then she would be his and everything would be good and fine and happy. He could forget about Debbie and forget about Sookie and keep the Sky woman happy.

Alcide was only getting angrier. He not only had to face Sky's response to the shapeshifter, but the irritable, intractable wolf as well. Plus Sookie was looking at him as if he were schizophrenic.

"Would you like any dessert?" Sookie was asking, while looking at him as if he were a two-headed monster.

He shook his head.

"Do you make any of the desserts here?" Sky asked.

"Lafayette makes the apple pie," Sookie answered. "But that's about it, I think."

Sky smiled. "I'd love a piece of that, please. Do you have ice cream and caramel sauce?"

"I'll ask," Sookie said. "I know we have ice cream, but I'm not sure on the sauce."

A little while later, while Alcide tried to think of something to say to break the increasing tension, Sookie brought the piece of pie back. It was smothered in ice cream and drizzled with chocolate and caramel.

"Wow," Sky said. "That's amazing!"

"I told Lafayette that you asked for something that was made here, so he did it all up for you."

Sky looked over at the cook's window, and Lafayette smiled at her. She smiled and waved at him, then turned back to pick up her fork. "Please tell him how awesome this is and how grateful I am."

Sookie headed for the back and Alcide stared at the pie as Sky picked up her fork. He couldn't believe how much stuff Lafayette had put on it. "Are you really going to eat all that?" To him, it looked like a pile of sugar.

But he realized too late that he'd said it sharply. She stopped with the fork halfway to her mouth. She stared at him in surprise. Then her eyes narrowed. "Now I am. And you can leave any time you want, I'll get a ride home."

"With Sam?" he demanded.

She shrugged. "Maybe Marcus. He gave me his card. He can't be any nastier to me than you're being. If I'm going to beat myself up by hanging out with someone who's going to be rude and sharp to me, I just as well go all the way. Kind of like pie. If you order it, you just as well eat every single bite of it. It isn't as if common sense or health should enter into the picture." She lifted the fork up again. "Please leave. And don't feel you need to come back to the house or the clinic if you're going to continue to bite my head off for reasons you can't be bothered to explain."

Alcide stared at her. She ate without looking at him, as if he weren't even there. He tried to find something to say, but his wolf was furious with him and clamoring for him to fix it.

"I'm sorry," he said eventually. "I'm just in a bad mood. It was unfair of me to take it out on you."

"I forgive you but I'm not in the mood to talk about this." She laid the fork down. "Can you please go?"

She pulled cash out of her pocket and left it on the table, and Alcide wanted to kick himself yet again for not thinking of it before her. "I'll drive you back to the clinic, at least," he offered.

She sighed. "Fine."

When they arrived, he walked around and let her out. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Sky, I really am sorry. Nothing I said seemed to come out right."

She smiled gently at that. "I don't suppose I'm in any position to hold that against anyone," she told him. "Have a better day, Alcide."

"Can I call you?"

She looked uncertain, and he thought—not for the first time—that she looked a little like a young Sophia Loren. She had the same statuesque body and the sensual lips. Her eyes were less tilted, but just as rich and deep.

"I..." Her voice trailed off and she sighed. She looked lost and uncertain.

He wanted to beg her. The wolf wanted to jump on her. But he had his pride, so he gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Or he meant to, anyway. Except she pulled back, an irritated, surprised look on her face.

"You are totally unpredictable. You need to decide if you're Mr. Kissyface or Mr. Nastypants. And by the way, the next time you make a comment on my weight, I'm going to make a comment on... well, I don't know what, but I'll find something. Your predilection for running around with no clothes on!"

She turned to go inside. He felt her slipping away. "Can I call you, then?"

She stopped just as she was going in the door. "If you must. And if you leave Mr. Nastypants at home."

The door chimed closed behind her.

Marrok grumbled and growled and complained in the back of his mind. Alcide got into the rental and drove away.

The next day, he brought flowers to her clinic, but found the doors locked. He waited for two hours, until finally leaving. He went back to the hotel and paced. That night, Eric showed up, floating outside the window.

"Come in," Alcide offered, and Eric landed lightly.

"We need you tonight," Eric informed him.

"What's up?" Alcide asked as he pulled shoes on.

"We need a guard for the witch that she can't control. She's a necromancer. She has taken control over a human and a vampire so far. We need a werewolf."

As a naturally occurring supernatural creature, the werewolf could not be controlled by witches. It was one of the reasons why witches had hunted werewolves, just as vampires had hunted witches. Because of the presence of the wolf within, Alcide had a dual nature. It was that which made them immune to most forms of witchcraft.

Guns, however, were a different story, and Alcide had already felt their bite. Yet he couldn't refuse. Eric was helping him to stay hidden and keeping him alive. He owed the vampire, like it or not.

Once in the car, they drove in silence for a while before Eric said, "That vet of yours is giving the Coff Inn hell."

"How so?" Alcide's heart fell and his wolf stirred, growling.

"Apparently a vampire now and then thinks she's on the menu. A couple have gotten aggressive about it and she has tried some human self-defense tactics on them, with startling results. The staff at one point asked her to leave, I guess. She demanded to know if they were discriminating against her for being human." He grinned. "I like this human of yours."

"I thought you said she was irritating," Alcide told him.

"She was when she was doing it to me," he answered, his grin getting bigger. "She's quite popular over there. Some vampire's going to glamor her soon, I suspect."

Marrok growled so hard that it escaped Alcide's lips before he could stop it.

Eric's eyebrow rose. "I thought you weres didn't fraternize with humans."

"That's more of a guideline," Alcide grumbled.

Marrok sulked. Alcide should have marked her when he had the chance. Alcide knew, though, that his wolf didn't understand. He knew that in one way, Marrok was right, Alcide could have pushed the issue and probably taken Sky right there in the foyer of the clinic. But it wouldn't have been the right thing to do.

Yet the right thing wasn't always the easy thing and another very human part of him felt like an idiot for not pushing his advantage. At the same time, though, he realized on a profound level that he had a bad track record for choosing women.

"Bill is negotiating with the Shreveport pack leader for help with the witches," Eric interrupted Alcides reverie.

"Marcus?"

"Who knows. Whatever his name is."

"You can't trust Marcus, Eric. He'll double-cross you the first time you blink."

"What makes you so sure?" Eric asked. "I was not aware that you knew him."

"Debbie's been-"

"You don't trust him because he stole your girlfriend? You'll have to give me something more than that. It might be considered underhanded in the human world, but it is hardly something to make us believe he would be foolish enough to double cross vampires. I would almost think you had forgotten who I am." Eric's grin was feral this time, a cold reminder of his arrogant awareness of his own power, even over werewolves.

"He's sneaky. He'll pat you on the back with one hand and hide a knife in the other. When he came to me not long after Cooter died, I agreed to join the pack only because Debbie convinced me to. We were trying to work it out. I admit I've never seen anything overt outside of him convincing Debbie that I wasn't good enough for her. But still, something isn't right with him. He came looking for me after I was shot, and they tore Sky's place up something fierce."

"You know," Eric told him, "I think that's the longest I've ever heard you talk."

Alcide shook his head. Eric wasn't taking him seriously at all. He knew he shouldn't be surprised, but somehow it seemed like nothing was really right here. He had left things poorly with Debbie, but he had openly blamed the witch attack on the weres on Marcus. Marcus, on the other hand, blamed it on the vampires.

Yet it had been Marcus and Debbie who had tried to cut a deal with them. Alcide wasn't prepared to tell Eric about that, as he wasn't completely sure about it. The weres had agreed to support the witches, that much Alcide knew. But the particulars of it were what he wasn't privy to. And when he'd left rather than be a part of it all, he'd been shot.

While he'd told Sky that a witch had shot him, he wasn't entirely sure.

He suspected it might have been Marcus.


	8. Meeting the King

**8. Meeting the King**

Sky was having a very pleasant dream when the door slammed open and she sat up abruptly to find Eric looming over her in the darkness.

"You must come with me," he told her.

"What?" she demanded. "Wait, how did you get in here?"

She barely finished her sentence before she was yanked from her bed and the world tilted dizzily. The next thing she knew, they were flying down the hallway and out the door. She buried her head in his neck and prayed for it to be over soon. The world went from light to dark and then to extremely brilliant so quickly that her eyes didn't even get a chance to adjust.

In her night clothes, she was abruptly thrust into a room. She fell to her hands and knees as the world tilted crazily around her and her eyes burned from the blazing lights. An instant before agony tore through her throat, she registered the snarling, growling, barking rage of a frenzied dog.

Then pain blossomed in her throat and she managed a garbled, inexpressive whimper that was meant to be a scream. Blood pooled around her and she vaguely realized it was her own. Her hand slipped out from under her and she fell face-first into it.

She found herself looking into Marrok's bloody face as he suddenly stopped snarling with a startled, strangled yelp. He started licking her face and she reached up to pat him. She didn't know what had panicked him so that he didn't recognize her, but she knew that he had torn her throat out.

His face changed abruptly and he was Alcide. She tried to breathe, but sucked in only air. She convulsed as she heard, as if from a distance, "Eric, you fucking bastard!"

Then the world went crazy again as she was bounced and jostled and realized he had picked her up and was running with her. She tried to tell him that it was too late, she was as good as dead, but although her lips would work, she couldn't get the breath to speak.

Then abruptly she was jerked from Alcide's arms by Eric and laid on the ground. She convulsed again as she tried to draw another breath, and saw his face coming down toward her. Great, since she was dying anyway, apparently he wanted a meal.

Her eyes turned to get a last glimpse of Alcide's face as she spiraled towards darkness. He was saying something, but it was vague and distant. He was looking at Eric with undisguised fury, yet she still thought he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen.

"My saliva closed the artery," Eric said, and Sky found that somehow she had gotten enough breath to start choking.

As gasps of bloody foam geysered from the completely wrong place, she convulsed again. She found her mouth pried open, and she pushed and fought as her face was ruthlessly pinched. Something cold and sickly sweet poured into her mouth and lucidity began to return.

Then she realized Eric was feeding her blood and panic rose anew. She fought to get away from him, but found herself held implacably against his bleeding arm. She started spitting the blood out, sickened, and he withdrew his arm, clapping a hand over her nose and mouth until her involuntary reflex made her swallow so she could try to breathe.

He did it again as soon as she finished her first breath.

A strange sensation flowed through her and eventually she found she could breath without difficulty again.

"Shtop!" she protested against the offending arm, sickened by the blood pouring into her mouth.

He withdrew and she gagged at the very thought of what he'd just made her do.

"She will live," Eric announced.

"No thanks to you," Alcide snarled. "What the hell were you thinking? You didn't even let her recover before you shoved her in there with my wolf!"

"I did not know she would be such a poor traveler," Eric objected. "Nor did I think that your wolf would turn on her."

"He wouldn't, if you'd let her speak to him through the door first!"

"I'm gonna be sick," Sky muttered.

She tried to turn over, but Eric was still holding her down, his gaze locked with Alcide as the two men squared off. "Please," she muttered.

There was no response, so she vomited on Eric.

"Eww!" he objected. "What the fuck?"

"I told you I was going to be sick!" she complained. "You held me down."

"That's disgusting. You actually puked on me."

"You made me drink blood!" she accused. "_That_ is disgusting!"And to prove it, she vomited again. "Oh god, I can't take this," she moaned.

She turned away from Eric, only to come face-to-face with Alcide's naked body. "Oh god, you're naked again," she said, clapping her hand over her eyes. A bloody, vomited-on hand. Which, because of the presence of such offensive fluids—especially combined, made her vomit again.

Luck was with her, as she managed to avoid vomiting on Alcide. Albeit, barely.

Hissing at her, Eric flitted away.

She sat up, slowly, and looked down at herself. Her light cotton Pjs were covered in vomit and blood. She felt tears start and covered her face with her other hand—this one could be considered clean, relatively speaking—and chanted to herself.

"I'm going to wake up now. This is all a horrible nightmare and I'm going to wake up now. Right now. Oh god, please let this be a horrible nightmare."

"Please forgive my associate. I am terribly sorry for the way that he treated you."

She looked up to find an impeccably dressed man in a suit standing over her, even his dark hair perfectly in place. "Are you another vampire?" she asked. "I hope you're not hungry, because I don't think I've got much left. Of my own, anyway."

"Indeed I am. As a matter of fact, I am the King of Louisiana. And again, I do apologize for Eric's behavior. When I sent him for you, I did not intend for him to simply throw you in there like that." He stopped talking. "Are you crying?"

When she nodded, he said, "Of course you are. This must be quite an ordeal for you. Allow me to fetch someone to assist you to a room. You will stay here tonight and tomorrow, of course."

"I just want to go home," she said, fighting for all she was worth not to break down into sobs. "I just want my dignity back! Not that I had much, but I want it back!"

"Sky," Alcide began, "I-"

"Please don't," she said, and then the tears came in earnest.

The 'King' reached out his hand, "I'm Bill Compton. Please, let me show you to a room." Then he looked at Alcide, "I think it is safe for you to retrieve your clothing now, werewolf."

She tried to stand up, sliding on blood and puke. Bill reached out to help her and she swayed once standing. "Oh no," she said, before vomiting yet again, this time on Mr. Impeccable.

"Oh god, can I just die right now?" she pleaded, mortified.

But, he did not react as Eric had. He picked her up and told Alcide, "Get your clothes. You will need to watch over them as she stitches the witch up. We cannot leave her without care."

"What? You're going to make her-"

"I cannot allow the witch to die in my care. She has already sustained severe injuries, which is entirely unacceptable. I will see to it that your human is restored as quickly as possible. But she must attend to Antonia tonight, I'm afraid." Bill turned away then and Sky was carried away from Alcide.

She glanced up to see him disappearing down the hallway. His naked body was magnificent. In any other situation, she would have enjoyed that view far, far more than she was able to at the moment, though. It was a real pity, she thought as her head dropped down to smear the fine, expensive suit of the man carrying her.

Some thirty or so minutes later, she was dressed again. She paced, trying not to think about Alcide naked. But she couldn't help it. Something was wrong with her. She felt okay—well, she felt great—but she felt high. And she couldn't stop thinking about Alcide and kissing and nakedness. By the time a quite knock sounded at the door, she was in a state she hadn't been in since she was a teenager. Worse, maybe.

She looked up as the vampire King and Eric walked into the room. Then she took a second look at Eric. He had obviously had a shower. His hair was wet and a lock of hair was dangling across his forehead. She felt a sudden urge to sweep it back into place.

Her eyes narrowed. Something was wrong. She wasn't attracted to this man beyond a surface sort of sense of him as handsome.

"What did you do to me?" she demanded, suddenly angry.

He looked surprised at first, then grinned. It was a cute, roguish, boyish grin. It made her stomach tighten and she resented it.

He didn't prevaricate, though. He knew what she meant. "It's the blood. It was that or death."

At the mention of her drinking his blood, all attraction vanished and she felt queasy again.

He took several steps back. "Not again!"

She ran for the bathroom where, surprisingly, she vomited up yet more of her stomach contents. The scent of it was much worse than usual, so she found that it was having a sort of self-perpetuating effect. Finally, when she was heaving with no results, she flushed to get rid of the odor.

At last, getting a drink of water, she walked out of the bathroom as calmly as she could. "Can someone please explain what's going on?"

"I will," Eric said. "First, let me apologize-"

"Not you," Sky interrupted. "You're distracting, and I don't like it."

Bill cleared his throat. "Very well. Alcide was asked to come here to help guard the witch. There are good reasons why vampires can not go around her. Werewolves, however, are less in danger from her. She can force werewolves to change to their wolf form, but there is little other effect she can have on them. Humans are also vulnerable to her spells.

"When Alcide went to speak with her on my behalf, she forced his transformation. For reasons we do not know at this time, when he changed form, his wolf was extremely angry. He attacked her, and forced her onto the top bunk." He gave Eric a disgusted look. "We knew that she would try to trap us into coming to her by forcing the transformation, but we expected Alcide to simply sit and wait her out. When that did not happen, we had hoped that your presence would calm the wolf so that she could break her spell on him.

"It would seem," he finished, his hands crossed behind his back, "that your presence had the same effect."

"Could you possibly have gone about it in a worse way?" She shook her head as he made to reply, "Never mind. I know. So can I go back to the hotel now? I don't feel so well." Although, in spite of the vomiting, she actually felt amazing. Physically, anyway.

"We need you to sew her up, if you wouldn't mind. Her wound is not life-threatening, but it is a problem, still."

"I have no supplies. And I am a vet. You know that means I work on animals, not humans, right?" She scowled at him. What was with people thinking she was a human doctor lately? "If I make a mistake, I am liable and I really don't-"

"Please do not concern yourself with that. We really do need your help, Miss Devoe. Won't you please do your best for her?"

"I suppose you can make me, if I won't, can't you?" He inclined his head slightly and she said, "Well, thanks for not forcing me. But I still need supplies."

"We have a well-stocked infimary. But you will have to take what you need in to her cell. She can not be moved."

She followed him out of the room, giving Eric a dirty look. She didn't like him and she didn't like her newfound attraction toward him, either. He just grinned at her.

She gathered up what she thought she would need and then followed Bill back out of the room and down several flights of stairs. She hadn't realized she'd been in the top of the house. When they arrived, he opened a door and said, "You will be safe. Alcide is inside."

She nodded and walked in. The first thing she saw was Alcide, as his massive form dominated the room, dwarfing the older woman sitting on the bed. She felt a surge of lust so strong it was a punch to the gut and it took her breath away. For a moment, she forgot why she was there.

He was turned away from her, saying something to the woman on the bottom cot of the bunk. When she came in, he turned. As she was struck by the intense beauty of his eyes—something she had noticed before, but not to that degree, she saw his nostrils flare. His eyes changed suddenly, glowing with the supernatural brilliance that she knew preceded Marrok's appearance. But he didn't change, he just stared at her and her heart skipped a beat before speeding up.

Then she jerked herself back to awareness. She walked over to the woman and said, "Let me see the arm, please."

The woman complied. "I'm Antonia," she greeted Sky. "Thank you."

Sky ignored her. She hated this woman so much right in that moment that she doubted anything in the world could ever overcome it. She had never felt such complete loathing for another human being in her life except for ex-boyfriends.

"Why are you helping these vampires?" Antonia asked. "They are monsters."

Sky injected the local anesthetic, wanting to do the whole thing without it.

"You almost died because of them. This beast-"

Alcide growled. Sky stabbed her again with the needle, this time without a pretense of gentleness. She slammed the syringe down on the metal tray and glared at the other woman.

"Let me tell you something, bitch. I have been yanked from my bed and brought here at such speeds that my stomach was left behind. I was then bitten and nearly killed. I was forced to drink blood—human blood, no matter what they try to say—and I threw up on not one, but two vampires. I have no dignity and no patience left. So if you want your wounds taken care of, shut your damned mouth and let me finish." She picked up a pre-threaded suture needle.

"You should be fighting these beasts," the witch told her passionately. "Join with me, and we can take them all. I can feel the magic in you."

Sky stared at her with undisguised hatred. "You know, lady, there are people who clean toilets. Without those people, you would have to sit your naked ass down on a nasty toilet. There are people who build our homes and workplaces. There are people who fight AIDs and people who rescue others from burning buildings. There are people who fight vampires, and there are people who go to Church every Sunday. Me, I'm the kind of person who _takes care of people's pets!_ That's it. That's all. Now shut up!"

She jerked the woman's arm over to her and cleaned the wounds, stitching the worst of them together. She found herself able to focus to a degree she could never have expected. She smelled the blood and knew intuitively that it was clean and would not become infected. She saw the tissue of the muscle and could see clearly the strongest tissues and chose those to stitch together.

It took a fair number of stitches, but at last she was finished. To her relief, the woman stopped pestering her.

She got up and gathered everything together. She stepped out into the hallway and found another woman standing there in a guard's black uniform. She took the tray without a word and walked away. Sky turned back toward the cell as the door closed.

Alcide stood only a foot or so away. The heat radiating off of his body was like a beacon, and she wondered how she hadn't realized before how liquid and sweet that heat was. It made the hairs on her arms stand up.

Her eyes met his, and she once again wondered at herself. How had she never noticed the flecks of gold swimming the dark, warm brown depths of those eyes? How had she missed the beauty of the iris muscles as they shifted to acclimate to the changing light?

He was exquisite in every detail. She reached up and touched his lips with the tip of her finger. They were so soft, surrounded by the hair of his beard, which was a strange, tantalizing mix of coarse and soft. She ran her finger along his beard, marveling at the strange nature of such a combination.

"Sky," he said, his voice thick and husky. "You should go. You aren't yourself. This is Eric's blood, it's not you."

The beard gave way to the soft skin of his neck. Muscle danced there, alive with the fires of life. Her hand splayed across his chest. The muscles jumped beneath her hand and she groaned at the feel of it.

"Sky, stop," Alcide commanded, capturing her hand.

Her eyes met his. They glowed with the copper-red wolf precursor. She could almost see Marrok watching her from behind Alcide's eyes. "Marrok," she whispered, and it did not seem strange to her that the man and the wolf blended together in that moment until they were one being.

Alcide growled. "I can't control him forever, Sky." He sounded tortured, conflicted. The copper-gold receded. "He wants me to-" he shook his head and didn't finish the sentence.

"Ahem," Bill cleared his throat from behind Alcide. When they turned to look at him, he said, "We have prepared a room for Miss Devoe. She will remain here for the time being. Her belongings have been fetched from the Coff Inn. I will take her to her room now."

Sky practically dragged Alcide with her. He stopped, digging in and halting her. "I should stay here-"

"Actually," Bill cut him off, "your business with her is concluded for now. But you will be needed later, so we have prepared a room beside hers for you."

"Are you serious? She just had Eric's blood. She's..." he trailed off, shaking his head.

"We can lock her in, if you think it would help."

"Lock me out, more like it," Alcide growled.

But Sky didn't care. She barely even registered the conversation as she watched him. He was incredible. She didn't understand how she'd never noticed all of the small details before. The line of his jaw under the beard. The length and thickness of his lashes and how they framed his eyes like a lush, black field of wheat.

His eyes caught hers and she smiled.

"Stop looking at me like that," he said, pleading.

She stopped smiling, but couldn't stop staring.

"Hmm, yes. I see what you mean," Bill said. "Come along, Miss Devoe," he told her, taking her hand.

She frowned. He was cool to the touch, without heat or life. Yet something animated him, something magic that pulsed just below the surface, and she found it oddly fascinating. He raised an eyebrow at her. "It appears to be good that she completed her work before it took full effect. If it has yet."

She heard Alcide following them as he led her up the stairs, and she kept looking back at him like a schoolgirl with her first crush. Several times, she ran into Bill in her efforts to keep Alcide in sight. Was there ever a man more beautiful? More perfectly created?

They walked on for what felt to Sky like forever. They passed the formal sitting room where she had waited after cleaning up earlier, and she saw Eric leaning nonchalantly against the door frame. He smirked at her, and she narrowed her eyes at him. On a sudden impulse, she stuck her tongue out at him mockingly.

When the smirk vanished and he blinked, she started to giggle uncontrollably. She had surprised the vampire. That, she decided, was funny.

She followed Bill further, giggling and running into him as she laughed so hard that tears rolled down her face.

They arrived at a room with her suitcases in it. Bill took her inside and she turned to see Alcide standing outside the door. "Alcide?" she cried as the door shut. "No. No! Alcide? Don't leave me here!" She ran to the door, banging on it. "Alcide!" Panic rose in her. She yelled again and again, with no answer.

"Marrok," she said finally, sliding down the wall beside the door. "Don't leave me," she whispered softly.

The door opened and Alcide walked in. "Sky," he said. "You have no idea what you're asking of me."

She nodded. "I do. Stay with me. Don't leave me like this."

"Sky, I don't have the strength to resist you. I can't stay and still like myself tomorrow."

"Then let Marrok stay," she demanded.

Alcide scowled. "He hurt you!" he objected.

"He didn't mean to. He would never hurt me on purpose, or if he realized it was me."

"No, Sky," he said. "I can't. On purpose or not, he hurt you!"

"Please don't leave," she begged.

He groaned and shut the door. "I am never going to forgive myself for this."

"You will," she said with certainty. She tried not to stare, but it was so hard not to!

"You're not yourself," Alcide told her, not looking at her.

She laughed. It was suddenly so absurd. "Of course I am. Who else would puke all over a vampire king?"

His lip quirked and his eyes caught hers. "That was definitely all you," he said, the smile breaking through.

It captured her and stole her breath. She smiled back, unable to stop herself. He brushed her cheek with his knuckles and she caught his hand. The touch lit her nerves with a blissful, poignant feeling of longing, simple and uncomplicated by any sexual undertones for the first time since she had met him.

She held his hand against her face, breathing deeply of his unique scent and the heat of his body. She nuzzled against his hand, tugging it back when he pulled it away. He, being far stronger than she, won his hand back from her.

So she got on her hands and knees and kissed him. He kissed her back for a few seconds, then groaned and captured her face with his hands, holding her away from him. But the lust was back and she would not be denied.

"Sky, we can't do this," he muttered, his voice hoarse with desire.

"Yes, we can," she whispered.

"You're killing me," he groaned.

She grinned, "Not unless you're going to have a heart attack, old man."

He chuckled, but sobered immediately. "This isn't right, Sky. I can't take advantage of you. You're high off of Eric's blood. You would never forgive me, and rightfully so."

"I don't feel that different, really. Just more, not different," she told him, crawling into his lap and wrapping her legs around him.

She had never felt anything more magnificent than his body against hers. She pressed her lips against his and curled her fingers through his hair. It was so thick and soft and he was so... so everything. Hot and strong and hard and sexy and gentle and... and so fucking obstinate.

She growled in absolute frustration as he pushed her away yet again.

She got up from where she sprawled as he dragged himself out from under her. His eyes glowed and she grinned. She didn't know how or why, but she knew it meant that she was winning. She circled him, stalking him.

"What's the matter, Alcide," she asked, "don't you like me?"

He growled and she was pulled against him, his heartbeat throbbing in her ears like a drum. He kissed her roughly at first, then sighed and loosened his grip to run his hands through her hair. She would have purred if she could have.


	9. Damn the Torpedoes

_Strong sexual content advisory. M/F vanilla__, oral_

* * *

><p><strong>9. Damn the Torpedoes<strong>

Alcide promised himself that he wouldn't do anything to her that she would regret later. Marrok demanded more, but Alcide, furious with his wolf for harming Sky, subsumed him ruthlessly. He had never fought the wolf before. Never pushed him away, never tried to control him as most of the weres did.

But he felt only cold fury toward the wolf now. As he held Sky's pliant, trembling body in his arms, he knew how very close he had come to losing her. And all because of his wolf and its blind hatred.

He ignored Marrok's howling and held Sky. But he tried one more time. He knew that he would have to face the consequences if he didn't have the strength to back out. "Sky, I-"

Her fingers touched his lips and she stared at them with the same wonder she'd been looking at him with since leaving the cell after patching 'Antonia's' arm. "I may never have another chance to experience this, Alcide... to really _see_ you, to sense everything about you in such perfect detail. Please?" Her sweet blue eyes were filled with a depth of longing and a plea that stole his resolve like a tornado whisking a feather away.

He groaned and buried his face in her neck, dragging in the sweet scent of her skin and the perfume of her hair. His lips found hers again and his hand reached down to pull her hips against his. He could barely restrain himself as he tugged at her shirt, lifting the black men's uniform shirt over her head.

She back away long enough to let him take her shirt off, but was instantly back, pawing eagerly at his own shirt with trembling fingers.

"Relax," he said softly against the skin directly beneath her ear, before kissing her there lightly. "We have all the time we want."

She shivered and he smiled, nipping lightly at her neck. Her hands had transferred to his hair, and he found their touch as sweet as the apple pie she'd ordered at Merlotte's. He found the juncture of her neck and shoulder and teased it lightly with his teeth. She rewarded him with a moan, clinging to him as if he were the lone anchor in a maelstrom.

Picking her up, he abandoned all hope of turning away from her now. He dropped her on the bed, her form strangely slender and yet voluptuous, with a narrow waist and wide hips that begged to be caressed and kissed and touched.

He followed her onto the bed, kissing up her bare belly and past her as-yet-clothed breasts, peeking out of the plain satin bra she was wearing. One rosy nipple invited his lips, but he ignored it, returning to kiss her deeply as he used one of his thighs to press her legs apart.

Her leg wrapped around him and he groaned as it opened up her heat and he pressed unerringly against it.

Uninhibited for the first time since he had met her, she pressed eagerly up and against him, whimpering. He ground himself against her, frustrated by the clothes between them and yet wanting to prolong the experience for them both.

She tried again for his shirt, but he caught her hands with his and pulled them away from his body, trapping them against the bed. She arched and twisted against him, her motions unpracticed and entirely lacking in any artifice.

Marrok howled, and Alcide ignored him, closing him away from the experience.

Alcide rubbed against her in a long, slow stroke, as if he were inside her instead of clothed against her. Her eyes met his and he found them to be two smoky pools of molten blue desire. The scent of sexual arousal lingered in the air and her hair billowed across the bedspread of the king's guest room like a brown cloak on an emerald sea.

He released her hands and rolled onto his side, tugging her pants unsnapped and sliding them away. Simple satin panties in a french cut matched the bra she wore. The plain, unadorned satin was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen.

The scent of her arousal was even stronger now, sweet and light and loaded with pheromones. It lingered on the air like the promise of a new day and he leaned forward to kiss her belly as she whimpered again and curvetted toward him like a prancing filly in a field.

He growled and reached under her to find her bra strap. He was fortunate to find that it was a simple eye hook, though his fingers—far larger than any woman's—fumbled to separate the confounded instrument.

When her breasts fell free, he pounced on them to lathe them with kisses and nibbles, until he found one nipple and drew it into his mouth. She gasped and squirmed again and he was struck anew at how fresh and unpracticed her wriggling was.

He pressed her legs apart again and slid his leg between them, pleased when she once more threw her free leg over his waist and shifted and pressed against him, her heat and wetness easily penetrating through his jeans as he moved to the other breast to knead and press and lick that one as well. Her breasts were deliciously full and round, rising proudly from her body even as she lay on her back.

The sounds of her moans drove him to distraction, and he had everything he could do not to strip him and her and lunge inside her. She started to pull again at his shirt, and he finally relented. He rose and pulled it off, dropping it on the floor.

Her eyes devoured him with a bald, unvarnished lust that gave him that burst of sheer masculine satisfaction again. As he knelt back down on the bed and moved toward her, she reached out to him with a look so close to reverence on her face that he bit his lip with the beauty of it. She sat up slightly, leaning on one elbow, pulling his face to hers for a kiss with the other. As he lay on top of her, she touched him, her hands exploring and searching and learning. Her touch was divinity itself and he thought it fitting that she was shaped like the Greek Goddess statues of old—but fortunately for him, with larger breasts.

He pulled away to seek them again, so sensual all by themselves. She groaned and pushed him until he gave in and rolled to his side. She pushed again until he was on his back, and he found himself straddled and not in the least sorry. It was that much easier to fondle her, running his hand down her sides and across her hips, then back up to cup the breasts that spilled out of his fingers. Her hands were running over his chest and belly, occassionally in his way as he explored her curves and discovered the sweetness of her body.

She wriggled off of him, reaching for his pants, but he knew that he couldn't withstand the desire to be inside her without them. He grabbed her arms and tugged them behind her, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding her arms with one hand while he pulled her face down for a kiss that soon trailed down her writhing body.

He picked her up by the waist and dropped her back on the bed, tugging her panties down and dropping them god-knew-where without even noticing. He was surprised to find that she was neatly trimmed, and couldn't help but smile. He should have known, with her fastidious nature in everything else.

She suffered a sudden bout of insecurity and he negligently pushed her hands away, running his hands up her thighs to the apex of her mons. She gasped and writhed, her hands tangling in the green comforter as she shook her head.

"Alcide, I..." whatever she was going to say was lost as he leaned forward and licked her, her objection turning into a half whimper, half wail.

Her hips bucked up to meet his face and somewhere inside him, Marrok stopped howling.

She was slightly sweet but mostly without taste, just skin and slick lubrication. He teased the flesh aside to delve inside and was gratified as she bucked and tossed against him, her legs closing against his head without her notice. He pushed her legs open, then used his fingers to open her up to his tongue, drawing back to look and let cool air circulate before he drew his tongue up it in a long, hot lick that made her gasp and buck and twist.

He used his finger to pull her hood back before flickering his tongue against her clitoris and sucking on it, causing her to tremble and cry out almost in time with his touch. She was grinding against his face, her body convulsing as she whimpered again, her gasps coming faster and faster as he sped up his ministrations.

When she cried out, a muffled, almost pained sound and he knew she had reached orgasm, he pulled back slightly so that she would not become over-stimulated. Instead, he slid a finger inside of her. She was so slickly lubricated that it entered without the least bit of resistance at all. He immediately found the spot he was looking for and pressed against it.

She gasped and cried out again, and he moved up her body, keeping his finger inside of her and teasing that sweet spot. He nuzzled at her breasts and she gasped and curled her fingers in his hair so tightly that it brought a welcome pain with it. She seemed to realize immediately, letting go and finding a grip that didn't hurt him.

He drew his finger out and she whimpered again, her body curving in an attempt to reclaim it. He couldn't believe how responsive she was, and instead of driving it back in again, he teased her, play lightly in and out at the entrance until she wrapped a leg around him as if that could draw him back inside.

He gave her what she wanted that time, thrusting back into her and teasing her g-spot again, until she was panting and moaning again nearly in time to his motions. Then he went back down to lick and tease at her clitoris again. She arched and orgasmed and he found himself sprayed with clear liquid as she did. He continued to tease her as she came again and again until it tapered off.

Then he kissed back up her body, standing up to undo his pants and let them fall to the floor. He slid along her body as she reached for him, her eyes languid and welcoming. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he slid up her body and she was warm and willing and hot. When he tried to slide himself inside her, he found her to be so wet that he couldn't get himself into the right spot. Reaching down, he finally guided himself, frustrated.

When he entered her, it was everything his fevered imagination had told him it would be and more. She was hot and wet and tight and fit him as if she'd been made for him. She cried out as he entered her, a soft sound that repeated as he drove into her again. He had to stop for a moment. He hadn't been with a woman for long enough that he found himself already on the precipice. And he wanted to prolong the moment for them both, not shoot off on the first stroke like a virgin.

But she squirmed under him, pulling and reaching and more beautiful than anything he'd ever imagined. He moved again, grinding his teeth and trying to think of anything but what he was doing else he embarrass himself.

"Oh god... Alcide... you are... too... perfect..." she panted as he thrust in and out, the sound of their bodies coming together and their hoarse breathing reverberating in the room.

He kissed her, gratified and surprised by the praise. It wasn't something he'd heard before. He leaned forward and put his hands on her shoulders, leaning on his elbows so that their bodies rubbed as he thrust into her.

"You feel like you were made for me," he told her softly and picked up his pace.

She met him thrust for thrust, and he thrilled at how alive and responsive she was. But then she stopped him and it took a few moments of jockeying around before he realized she wanted to be on top.

"Far be it from me to stop you if you want to ride," he told her with a grin.

She smirked at him and her hair fell in a cascade across his chest as she drew him back into her body. She shifted around, and he felt her all around him. Then he couldn't help himself as her breasts rippled and bounced and he had to feel them in his hands. He almost lost control as she grabbed his hands and used them for leverage to ride him harder, pressing his hands against her breasts with her own.

When she let go and put her hands on his chest, he grabbed her hips and guided her into a forward and backward curve instead of straight up and down. She gasped as the new action rubbed her clitoris and he again almost lost his focus as she enthusiastically took up the new motion. It was hot as hell to see her using him for her own gratification without apology or expectation. As she lost herself in the sexual delight, her eyelids dropped and he was certain he had never seen anything more delicious in his entire life.

When she came again, her body jerking forward and her hair falling over him, he was only instants behind her, the convulsions of her body around him more than he could withstand. She sat on him, looking down at him, her lips swollen from his kissed and her breasts heaving as she panted, and he wanted to stay just like that for the rest of his life.

But she collapsed on him a moment later, and he rolled her over onto her back, not breaking the contact between their bodies.

"Sky, I hope you're not going to regret-"

She cut him off with a finger to his lips. She pulled him down and kissed him. When she let him go, he pulled away, still concerned.

"We aren't done, are we?" It sounded almost plaintive, while it sounded demanding at the same time.

He let a slow grin seep across his face. "Not unless you want to be," he told her.

"I think I'm supposed to be over it at some point," she said. "But if it feels this good, I might never be done."

At those simple words, he was hard again, so he proved to her that they were far from 'done', at least for that night. It might be the only one he got with her, once she realized what he had done. He'd be damned if he was going to waste it.


	10. Dearly Departed

**10. Dearly Departed**

Sky woke in the early evening. The first sensation she had was something heavy lying across her. And something hot and large lying against her. But the room was cool, so she found herself naturally drifting toward that radiant heat.

Her eyes opened and she found herself looking into brown eyes as deep as the ocean and even more beautiful. She still felt the strange effects of Eric's blood, but it was muted now, the distant roar of the same seaside that his eyes brought to mind.

She generally woke slowly, so it would have come as no surprise to anyone when she realized quite suddenly that she was naked and pressed very intimately against Alcide, and that he had most certainly noticed that state of affairs well before she had.

She gasped and her eyes flew to his face. He looked perfectly calm, serene even. As if he woke up naked and tangled up with a woman every day.

"Oh god, I'm naked!" she said. Her mind refused to explain why she was naked. All she knew was that she was in bed, and he was in bed, and they were both naked. Oh, and he was really, really hot.

She scrambled away from him, trying to think of why she was naked. And why he was naked. Just how badly had she humiliated herself even after she had thrown up all over everyone. Oh god, had she thrown up on him and then... Sadly, she could imagine herself doing exactly that.

She got up, then realized she was naked still and standing up. She grabbed the comforter off of the bed and wrapped herself in it. During that, though, she realized that she was sore. In... certain places.

It all flooded back to her. She had pressured him into bed!

She caught his eye even as realization hammered through her. He lay watching her calmly, his arms crossed under his head.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. She started searching for her clothes, dragging the comforter with her.

"What for?" he asked. "Freaking out?"

"I am not freaking out!" She bristled, irritation making it come out sharper than intended.

She found her shirt and jeans, then her bra. But the comforter had gotten hung up in the bed and wouldn't stretch far enough to reach her panties. She got down on her hands and knees and stretched for them. If she could just pull it another three or four inches...

He got up and picked them up, holding them with a finger looped through them. She looked up, only to find herself staring straight at his penis as it jutted unapologetic from his body. Memories once more replayed in her mind and she remembered how soft the skin was, how long and smooth and hard it was.. and how wantonly she had touched and... she tried to turn the memories off, but she felt scorching lust ignite between her legs.

He twitched as if he knew her thoughts and she stood up hastily, grabbing her panties. "Thank you," she choked out.

"Are you angry with me?" he asked her.

Her eyes flew to his face. "At you? No. I'm the one who... who pushed myself on you." She felt her face redden at the admission.

"I wouldn't exactly call it that," he told her, stepping closer.

She retreated until she felt the bed behind her. "I remember what happened, Alcide. I acted like... like..like a... a hooker. Or something."

"Actually, I have it on good authority that hookers are far more mechanical, and not nearly so appreciative as you were," he told her. "You acted like a woman who is genuinely attracted to the man she was with and cared for his pleasure."

"Oh god, I can't talk about this right now," she objected, mortified.

"Sky," he said quietly, so close to her now that she could feel his body heat and smell that masculine scent that was distinct to him, and only him. "I work hard to keep my body in good shape. It's nice to have a woman genuinely appreciate it as you seemed to do."

She chuckled at that, a bit shrill and panicked sounding though it was. "I'm sure that's not true."

"It is," he said softly.

Now that distracted her. "What the hell is wrong with Debbie?" she demanded. "She hasn't got the good sense god gave a termite. If you were my boyfriend-"

She stopped. Why, oh why, must she eat her foot every time this man was around!

"I'm not usually like that!" she told him.

He had worked his way closer to her, and he wrapped his arms around her. "That's too bad," he murmured as he pulled her against him, nuzzling into her neck and turning her knees to jelly. "You're a fantastic lover."

"I was high," she argued weakly. "I'm not usually a lewd person, I..."

"Unfortunate," he answered, his lips and his beard ticking along her shoulder. "Though I think I prefer the word 'sensual'. Or maybe 'sexy'." His hand on the flat of her back pressed her firmly against him.

She clung to her clothes desperately, the last line to what dignity she could muster after turning into a complete, mindless hussy the night before. But his lips found hers and the clothes slipped from her grip, her arms entirely disobeying all of her commands to stay and curling around his neck instead.

A sudden, sharp banging on the door dragged her mind back to the present.

"Werewolf? They need you. They think the witch is trying something."

"When are these people going to remember that I have a name?" he muttered against her lips. "On my way," he said out loud toward the door.

"Hurry."

He sighed. "Hold this thought, okay?" He ran a gentle finger down her cheek, then kissed where his finger had been.

He dressed quickly, and she tried hard not to watch him as she picked up her own clothes.

He stepped close to her one more time, kissing her deeply. Then he whispered, just below her ear where the skin was surprisingly sensitive, "I could be, you know." As he disappeared out the door, she tried to figure out just what he could be.

She dressed quickly, distracted by the images running through her head. Then she realized that she was pretty much useless here, and changed her mind. She didn't want to stay, but since she was here now, she was going to use the shower again and change into her own clothes.

When she was done, she slowly left her room, uncertain and even rather afraid. As she made her way down the hall, feeling lost and uncertain, she saw the flicker of motion ahead of her. Then Eric was standing in front of her, looking down at her.

"He could kill you again, you know," he told her.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Oh no. You can't blame that on him. You did that. That was your fault, and you know it, or you wouldn't have saved my life."

"We needed you to sew up the witch," he sallied.

"Oh, bullshit. You and I both know that you could have yanked a real doctor out of his or her bed. You don't need me any more than you need the dirt outside. You vampires can play political games all you want, but despite the romantification, we're just food to you."

"So jaded," he muttered. "Who would have expected it of you. You hardly strike me as practical."

"You don't know me at all, now do you. You should before you judge someone."

"Hypocrite. You've judged me. I hardly think you're in any position to complain if it's done to you." At the look on her face, he raised an eyebrow. "Mmhmm."

"How is it that men can always turn things around and upside down? A minute ago you were trying to blame Alcide for you shoving me into the room with his angry, terrified wolf."

Eric raised his eyebrow again. "Terrified? Why would he be terrified?"

"How should I know? When Alcide is done with whatever he's doing, I'll ask."

Eric's brows drew together. "You don't blame him at all for ripping your throat out?"

"You don't blame a frightened animal for biting you when you add to his fear. How many times do you think I've been bitten and clawed and even nearly lost an eye? You can't explain to an animal that you're helping them. I don't know how much presence of mind his wolf retains when he's forced to shift, so I assume that he's like any other frightened and angry animal. You should, too."

Then she told him, "I'm hungry. Is there a kitchen here?"

"There is a kitchen. There is no human food in it. Apparently Bill is not used to human guests despite being married to a human."

She blinked in surprise. "He's married to a human?"

"Mmmhmm. Sookie."

She chuckled before she could stop herself. "Poor guy."

Eric laughed, and she was surprise. "She can not read his mind."

"Ah. No wonder he could stand her for longer than ten minutes."

"Harsh," Eric said.

She chuckled. "I was joking. Mostly."

"You sound jealous. Would you like to be married to a vampire, too? I could help you there, if you really want. It would be good for my image, being married to a human." He smirked at her.

"I think you might be the anti-christ," she told him. "And no, no thanks. You're already exactly like an angry husband."

"How's that?"

"Well, just imagine a woman married to you, 'He's so charming and handsome and sweet when he's not terrorizing me or getting my throat torn out by angry wolves!'," she said it in a dreamy, goofy voice.

"Ah, yes. I see what you're saying," he said. "But in my defense, I didn't know he would do that. And you did puke on me. And yet, I still offered you my hand. I'm quite a catch, you know."

"You only offered because you knew I would say 'no'. I should have said 'yes' just to watch you backpedal," she laughed. "Now, on to the business of the night. What do you want from me?"

He looked surprised. "Why would you ask me that?"

"You're going out of your way to be charming. You want something."

"That's terribly unjust. I'm always this way." Eric spread his hands innocently.

"With humans?"

"Only the useful ones," he smirked.

"So, what do you want from me?"

"Nothing, I swear. You were scared, I decided I would walk you out and show you where your car is and make sure that you understand that you will be staying here for the time being."

She rounded on him in anger. "You can't keep me here!"

"We can," he answered. Now all pretense of charm was gone and his face was cold and uncompromising. "And you will say nothing of that witch being here, nor about werewolves, to anyone."

"Ah," she said. "Now we get to the heart of things. You want to know if you can trust me to keep my mouth shut about your kidnapping and whether I will protect Alcide's secret. See, I knew you wanted something. Don't worry," she said bitterly, "I'm excellent with secrets. I won't say anything to anyone about it."

He stepped very close to her and gripped her chin and turned his face up to look into her eyes. "I think you understand what will happen to you if you do." Then he kissed her on the cheek as if they were simply saying good-bye after a stroll in the park and as if he weren't holding her chin with bruising strength.

He stepped back. "Go get yourself something to eat." Then he flitted away and she was left feeling angry and a little frightened. As well as strangely wounded that he had felt a need to threaten her even after she had given her word.

She got in the car and went to Merlotte's to eat. It was a quiet evening and to her regret, Sam wasn't there. But fortunately, neither was Sookie, so she could sit and brood in peace.

When she ordered the pie with caramel sauce again, she was surprised when Lafayette brought it over himself. He draped himself in the seat across from her.

"I'm gonna talk to Sam and tell him we needs ta make that a regular dessert up in here," he told her.

"It's delicious, and you are a great cook," she answered him.

"Now, you gonna tell Lafayette what's botherin' you, hooker?"

She stopped with the fork halfway up, her mouth hanging open. Was it written all over her? Did she look different? Was she dressed slutty? She could feel red flowing over her face.

He laughed. "It's just an expression, girlfriend. Calm down."

She sighed. "It's a guy, naturally. I moved to Bon Temps for a simple, quiet life-"

He started laughing. "That was a mistake."

"Yes, so I've noticed. It seems to be Grand Central Station for drama. Anyway, I met a guy and through a series of events, I got high. Which is something I've never done before-"

"You're missing out. You should do it more often."

"Yes, well. So anyway, I got high and I pressured him into having sex with me."

Lafayette gasped, widening his eyes and dramatically putting his hand on his chest. "You didn't? That poor, poor, poor man! How will he ever survive such trauma?"

She tried not to grin. "That's not funny, Lafayette. He was trying to protect me from making a mistake while I was not myself."

"That's noble," he said. "So do you regret it?"

She shook her head. "Not really. Sort of. I... I was sort of... inappropriate."

His eyebrows shot up. "Did you pee on him or something?"

"What? No! Ewww!" She sighed. "Although the puppy peed on him earlier. But not me."

"Well, if you didn't do anything that extreme, then you probably didn't do anything he didn't like. He's probably sitting at home right now trying to think of a way to get you high again," Lafayette told her.

She shook her head. "He's not like that. Besides, in my experience, most men sit at home trying to find a way to avoid answering the phone when you call."

"I doubt he's doing that. If he was trying to protect you from yourself, he'd not trying to get out of your phone calls," Lafayette reassured her. "You don't know much about men, do you?"

She laughed. "What I know about men could fill a book. But only if it was about two inches by two inches, with jumbo writing, and three pages."

"Well, if he could tell you 'no' when you were trying to get him to have sex wi' you, he either ain't straight, or he really likes you. So I wouldn't sit there worryin' he is gonna run off on ya."

She smiled at him. "Thanks Lafayette."

"You're welcome, hooker. Just don't be tellin' nobody."

"Don't worry," Sky replied, recognizing the irony of saying the same thing in the same night for such different reasons, "I'm good with secrets."

He got up and strolled nonchalantly back to the kitchen. Sky finished her pie and paid her bill, leaving extra for the waitress.

When she got back, she found Alcide standing at the door of her room. He was leaning back against the wall, his arms crossed. The stance showed off the muscles of his shoulders and arms to great advantage, and she was struck with how he could take her breath away simply by showing up.

He looked up, his eyes dark and broody. A shiver of discomfort slithered up and down her spine, curling in her belly and boiling into full-blown anxiety when he didn't smile.

She knew what was coming. But she wasn't going to make it easy for him.

"Would you like to come in?" she asked, not really wanting to make this a public affair.

He nodded and followed her inside her room.

"I almost killed you," he said. "If Eric hadn't been there-"

She was relieved. She'd thought he was going to tell her he couldn't see her anymore. "Alcide, Marrok almost killed me, and it wasn't his fault-"

"It was," he said, fiercely. "He turned on you like some savage... thing! He acts like he loves you, but-"

She took his cheeks in her hands and turned his face to hers. "He does! Alcide, if there's one thing I am certain of, it's that it was an accident. His affection for me is that of an animal. It's simple and uncomplicated, and real. I know that. I lived with you while he was dominant for weeks. What you should be asking yourself is-"

He took her hands in his. "He can't love you and turn on you like that. It isn't possible. He nearly killed you—I-I nearly killed you! I can't protect you from him—from me! And you can't protect yourself from us, either!"

She stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself and closing her eyes. "So you're leaving."

"What choice do I have?" he asked. "I could kill you. If Eric hadn't been there, I already would have." He stepped up to her and grasped her arms. "And when I saw you out there with Eric, I wanted to hurt something, someone-"

She glared at him. "'Saw' me with Eric? Saw what?" She shook her head and stepped back. "You know what, forget it. Fuck you. Get out. If you wanted to leave, you should have just been a man about it and left, not made up excuses and tried to make wild claims about me and Eric. Just fucking go."

"Sky, I-"

She slapped him with all of her strength and was shocked when it staggered him. But she hardened her heart and girded herself for the pain that was coming.

"You got what you want. Now get out. You are no fucking different. You're a fake. Get. Out."

He grabbed her arms again, though still gently. "Please, Sky, don't-"

She lost emotional control and jerked away from him. "Get out!" she screamed in his face. He took a step backwards. She pushed him, rage and pain flowering in her heart and flooding her senses.

Eric was there, just like that. "What's wrong?" He rounded on Alcide, "What have you done to her?"

"Get out, both of you!" she shrieked. She picked up a lamp and threw it at the wall. It shattered completely, pulverizing into tiny fragments. She stared in surprise.

Eric turned to Alcide and grabbed him by the arm.

"Wait," Alcide told him. "She doesn't understand."

"Now is not the time to try to make her understand," Eric told him. "Live a little longer and you'll realize that."

Sky was shaking so hard she could barely stand. When they got out the door, she walked over to it.

"And Alcide? Maybe, just maybe, instead of using him as your excuse to bail on me, you should ask yourself why he was so scared to begin with!" She slammed the door in his face, staring at it in shock as it, too, broke spectacularly. "Wow, that's a shitty door."

Eric's voice came from the hallway, "Actually, my blood enhanced your strength. You might want to take it easy on the furniture. It enhances your emotional states, too," he added.

"Great. That's just great!" she yelled. "Thanks, Eric! Thanks for _nothing_!"

No wonder she'd never been so angry—or so hurt—in her entire life. Not even when Mitch had run off with Kaitlin the night after she finally had sex with him.

She paced, fury and pain burning in her with no outlet.


	11. Separation Anxiety

**11. Separation Anxiety**

Alcide tried to break free from his grip, but Eric's fingers were like cold steel bands. "I need to explain to her. To help her understand-"

Eric stopped and faced him, "You cannot reason away rejection."

"I'm not rejecting her," Alcide argued. "I'm protecting her."

"Not from her perspective. If you are determined to leave her, then do it. Shit or get off the pot, werewolf. She's never going to see it as anything other than rejection, no matter what you say or do."

Just like that, Eric was gone.

Alcide realized that he needed a run. He walked outside and into the woods, finding a decent spot to hide his clothes. Then he called up the ancient magic that allowed him to shift and run as the wolf.

Nothing happened.

He felt a disoriented moment of panic, and then calmed and centered himself. He sought to shift again. Once more, nothing happened. He searched his mind and found no trace of Marrok at all. He staggered, grabbing the tree behind him. He'd only once heard a legend about one man's wolf abandoning him. In fact, it was well known that in reality, 'weres were intrinsically linked to the point where the death of one was the death of the other. They couldn't leave one another!

But he was alone within the silent vault of his mind. He still possessed the keen senses of a werewolf, but he was a 'were without a wolf. He should be happy. He should be glad that the dangerous half of him, the part that had for all intents and purposes killed Sky—saved only by a vampire—was gone.

Instead, he felt diminished. Broken. Vulnerable. He threw his clothes back on and stalked into the mansion. Trotting down the stairs, he opened the door and walked into the room with the woman named Marnie, who was possessed by the witch named Antonia.

"What did you do to me?" he snarled at her in rage.

She crossed her arms. "I forced your transformation. I thought you knew that. Did you have a lapse of memory?"

"What did you do to my wolf?" he demanded.

"Nothing. He bit me."

"Force the transformation again."

"No."

"Do it, damn it."

"No," she refused again. "That would be suicide. I saw what you did to that other woman, but I know the vampires won't save me as they did her."

"Get up on the bunk, then, and force the transformation. Or I will rip you apart with my bare hands!" In that moment, he wasn't sure he wouldn't.

She sighed and complied. As she chanted, he waited for the transformation. Nothing happened. Marrok didn't even stir inside him.

Her chant ended and she shrugged. "It seems you are no longer in possession of a wolf," she told him.

"Because of you," he snarled. "You did this!"

She shook her head. "If you have lost your wolf, young man, it is your own doing." She smiled smugly at him. "I have no such powers over you, beast. This is your own responsibility."

She laughed openly as he left the room.

He got a few paces down the hall before he found himself lifted off of his feet and slammed against the wall. Bill held him easily, despite being smaller and much lighter than Alcide.

"You dare go in to confront my prisoner without my permission, 'were?"

"She stole my wolf!" Alcide objected, choking.

He was tossed negligently onto the ground. "Then you are of no further use to us. Leave." When Alcide made to protest, Bill's fangs snapped out.

"Wait," Alcide argued. Bill's eyes narrowed, but Alcide pressed on, "She still has no power over me. And now she cannot control me as she would a human, but she also can't force a transformation."

Bill stared at him for a few long seconds. Then he snapped his fangs in. "Very well. You will go stay at a hotel and you will return when and if you are needed."

"But-"

"You have upset my human guest enough. Since she has medical knowledge, however limited, she is of more use to us than you are. You will not remain here to distress her further."

Alcide turned and walked up the hallway. But in his heart, he had to admit that, without his wolf, he was afraid. Afraid to go out into the world. Afraid to be alone. Afraid of what might happen if he was attacked. Afraid that he would never recover what he had lost.

And part of him burned with anger, too. He'd seen her standing at her car with Eric, his hand on her face. He'd bent forward to kiss her and she hadn't pulled away or objected in any way. He had smelled it when she'd been aroused by Sam, too.

It was Debbie all over again. Except worse in its own way, because Debbie had never denied it once she got caught. Sky, on the other hand, denied it, even though she'd had Eric's blood and Alcide had seen her at the car with him. He knew what vamp blood did. If she had just been honest, he could have explained it and maybe she'd be able to resist Eric.

But she lied and she kissed another man the very evening she'd made love to Alcide. The knowledge burned in him like a blood-red coal. He had lost his wolf, yet another woman cheated on him, and he was afraid of his own shadow.

He got into the rental car and pondered the wretched mess his life had become.

As he drove to find a hotel to stay at, racking up the bill with Eric, of course, he realized something. There was supposedly a man still living in New Orleans who had lost his wolf. It was said that he'd lost it for several years, and then it had come back.

Alcide feared his wolf was too far gone for retrieval, but he needed to know. So he went instead to a computer store, the only one in the area that catered to vampires by being open at night.

After an exhaustive eight hours of research, he found what he was looking for online. A name. With that, he packed up and headed to New Orleans. He missed Sky already, and he wanted to go to her and apologize and beg her forgiveness. But he feared life without Marrok. He feared even being with her, without Marrok. He was half a man by himself.

With no rest, he climbed in his car and headed down to New Orleans. When he got there, he finally stayed at another hotel when exhaustion won over his desire to find him and the search seemed fruitless. When he rose the next day, he searched again. A week passed and he gave up hope.

He stood on the balcony of his hotel room, looking down on the woods behind. Restless and unhappy, he packed his things and went into the woods. Twenty minutes later, he realized he was alone in the woods without the senses of the wolf to guide him back again. Suddenly inexplicably panicked, he turned to go back and found himself watched.

The quiet man, leaning negligently against a tree, simply stared at him without moving. After long moments had ticked by, he said, "I hear you been lookin' fer me."

"I'm looking for a man who lost his wolf," Alcide said cautiously.

"Ain't nobody alive what lost his wolf and lived to tell of it, boy," the man said.

"I have," Alcide answered honestly. "I need Charles's help."

"Hmm, ye have, have ye? What makes ye so sure?"

"I can't feel him anymore. I can't turn."

"Been a full moon since it happened?"

"No."

"Then ye don't know fer sure yet, do ye?"

"I know," Alcide said. "I can't find him inside at all."

"He just ain't answering yer call. Happens a lot."

"No, it's more than that. He's gone. I can't feel him. How did you get yours back?"

"What you want him back fer? Ain't ye happier without him?"

"No," Alcide admitted. "I feel... vulnerable."

Charles—Chuck, as the locals called him—stood up from the tree. "He ain't gonna come back just cause yer scared wit'out him, boy. Ye loved him, didn't ya?"

Alcide looked away. He wasn't going to admit to this man that Marrok had been more than just the servant that other 'weres treated their wolves like.

"It makes them more human," Chuck said. "If ya love them, they love ya back. If ye loved him, and then ye took that love away, 'e won't do what a wolf'd do, e'll do what a human would do. His love will drive him to give ye what ye want—a life without 'im."

"I don't want a life without him!" Alcide argued.

"Yes, ye do. If ye didn't, he would be with ya. Ye just want a life without him where you ain't scared or lonely. That's what ye really want. He can't do nothing with the scared or lonely part, but he can give ye the life wit'out him. And that's what he done."

"But, I didn't want him to leave. I can't live without a wolf, I don't know how. How did you get yours to come back?"

"He won't come back til you want him back." When Alcide made to speak again, Chuck raised his hand. "Ye just don't want to live without a wolf. If ye ever want yer own wolf back, then he might, maybe, come back. But ye gotta want him, pers'nally. Ye can't just wish ye didn't have to be human-like no more. Would ye go back to a person ye loved, only 'cause they didn't want to live alone, but even though they still hated ye?"

"I..."

Alcide sighed. He had been about to lie and say he didn't hate Marrok. But he couldn't say it. It wasn't true. Marrok had almost killed Sky and had cost Alcide that relationship. He wasn't certain that he hated him, but he knew he didn't welcome him.

"There's good things, and there's bad things 'bout lovin' yer wolf and respectin' him. He lets you be more human in all the good ways. But if ya hurt him and reject him, he's too human to keep crawlin' back. 'E loves ye too much ta force hisself on ye."

"He does it every full moon," Alcide growled.

"That ain't him, that's the magic. If the magic don't bring him up, though, then ye know he done buried hisself deep. Ye might never get him back, then." With that, Chuck stepped back into the darkness and Alcide saw his silhouette shift and flicker away into the night.

On the bright side, he could go back now to Sky and be with her. Marrok no longer endangered her. But he couldn't go back because he had already burned that bridge and because he couldn't face her and admit that Marrok was gone. That it was all his fault and that no matter how much he tried to do the right thing, it always blew up in his face.

But it wasn't his fault, some part of him said. It was Marrok's fault. Marrok attacked her and almost killed her. Marrok destroyed his chance for happiness as completely as if he had completed the deed. Alcide clenched his fists and hit the tree beside him until it and the knuckles of both hands were bloody. Then he stood with his forehead against it and let the misery course through him.

He hated life. He hated what was happening to him and he hated the way the world seemed to tilt crazily every time he tried to put it back to rights.

And god help him, but he wanted to hold Sky again. His arms ached with an emptiness that he'd never felt before. Sky was not only elegant and beautiful, she was kind and gentle and compassionate. Goofy and awkward and well-meaning and sweet. And he had screwed it up so badly that he didn't know what to do.

He knew that Sky blamed Eric for what had happened, but he blamed Marrok. There was no excuse. So he would learn to live without his wolf. If that was how it had to be, then that was how it had to be to keep the people in his life safe.

He got back in the rental car and went back to Shreveport. He paced, considering. What was he going to do now? He had to resume some sort of life. He couldn't keep on like this.

But he did for another three weeks.

Finally, he sat down one day and began to look through the area for a house for rent. He would start a new life. But not too far away. What if Sky needed him? He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. She didn't need him.

He tried so hard to be considerate of her feelings and all he did was upset her. It had been that way with Debbie, too. He grunted. Must be nice to just feed a woman your blood and next thing you know you're kissing her in the driveway like Eric had Sky. Minutes after she walked away from another man.

Then he shifted uncomfortably. He had almost kissed Sookie, right after her fiance-to-be had been kidnapped from under her nose, so who was he to judge?

He got up and walked around, unable to focus. At last he sat back down and tried again. He found a likely house in Marthaville. He called and made an appointment to visit with the owner. Hanging up, he reached up to turn the monitor off when something caught his eye.

For rent: 2 bed, 2 bath, Bon Temps. $350 month/ $350 deposit. 555-328-5538 S. Devoe

He sat down hard. She was leaving. Renting out her little house that she dreamed of putting a fireplace in, and leaving. Going where? He had no idea where she might go. What she might do. Well, besides being a vet. He couldn't see her giving that up.

But he had walked away. He didn't have the right to ask, to want to know. He didn't care. He could feel her slipping even further away and the thought crushed his heart like the Coyote's anvil from the Road Runner show. Only this was real life and his heart wasn't going to get up and give chase again. It was now or never.

He rushed out the door. She'd be at her clinic. He had to at least tell her he was sorry.

But she wasn't there. The sign was gone, the windows were boarded, and the front door was taped over from behind with brown paper to protect the carpet from sun damage. A small flower tried to bring a bit of cheer to the place, straggling weakly in the pale, watery light of Bon Temps's Spring.

He walked around it and thought of little Piddles and felt the misery of how deathly silent the place was. It had the air of something long abandoned, as if in only a few short days it had grown stale and tried to go home to the swamp it had sprung up from.

A chill came over him and he walked back to his car. There was one place left to go, so he turned and headed up towards the vampire headquarters of Louisiana. The guards knew who he was and let him go in.

Sookie came into the room while he was sitting there silently contemplating how much Sky must have liked staying there. There was a fire burning in the hearth.

"She's gone, you know."

He looked up. "Gone where?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. She didn't tell me or Bill. For the first two weeks, though, she thought you'd come back."

He looked at her in surprise. "She said that?"

Sookie shook her head. "She doesn't talk much if you don't prod her to it. But she thinks a lot. She lived here with us for two weeks, I was bound to hear her thinking at some point."

"I wanted to," he told her honestly.

"You should have. Personally, I think you're being stupid, myself."

"Thank you, Sookie, you're very kind."

"You're welcome. So how are you going to find her?"

"I don't know. If she didn't tell you where she was going, and she's still hiding from the Shreveport pack, I think I've lost her. She's even boarded up the clinic."

"You're so quiet," she said suddenly. "Usually your wolf is—"

"He's gone."

"What do you mean, 'gone'," she asked with a disbelieving laugh. "You're a werewolf, your wolf can't be 'gone'. Can it?"

"It's rare. Extremely rare. But apparently it can happen."

"Well, how?" she leaned forward. "Is it a cure?"

He shook his head. "Debbie wanted children and I refused. It's so hard to be a 'were in this day and age. I used to think it was the worst curse imaginable. But being without my wolf is even harder."

"What happened with you and Debbie, anyway?" Sookie asked. "Did you get back with her, even after Cooter?"

"Yeah," Alcide answered her. "When I moved to Shreveport, I wanted to make a new life right after you and her fought. She came around a few months later. She had really reformed. She found religion and she was cleaned up and off of the V. But it was only six months or so before we started fighting again. She left me for Marcus. He's the Shreveport pack leader. I let her go, but for whatever reason, she hates me. They won't leave me alone now."

"Why does she hate you? She left you!"

"I think she blames me. If I'd been willing to give her children, she'd have the house I bought and the life she dreamed of. But now she's just another one of Marcus's groupies. And still not pregnant."

Sookie sat back in her chair. "So how did Sky get involved in all of this?"

"Well, you know that night a while back at the cemetery when Bill tried to offer Marnie a truce? I was there to help, right?" At her nod of remembrance, he went on, "Well, the Shreveport pack was there, too. Now, this is speculation. I'm not sure about it. I think they were there to help Marnie—er, Antonia—but they might have been there to try to kill me. In the confusion, I know you guys caught Marnie, but I got shot."

"You think the Shreveport pack is in league with the witches?" Sookie looked alarmed.

"Now, Sookie, don't get ahead of things here. I have no proof-"

"You didn't think to mention this to Bill?" she demanded, jumping up.

"I have no proof, and they've been trying to kill me for months! It's as likely they were there for me as on the witches' behalf. I don't know for sure." He ran his hand through his hair. "Are you sure you never even caught a stray thought of where she was going?"

"She went to a hotel," Sookie said. "I don't know which one, but I know it's not the vampire hotel. Eric told her not to go back there, because she was too much trouble for the staff."

At Eric's name, Alcide bristled.

"Oh, stop that. Eric's been a perfect gentleman to her."

"I'm sure he has," Alcide growled.

"She's scared of him, you know."

"She should be. You should be, too," Alcide answered, still filled with white-hot rage.

"Bill won't let him hurt me," she answered.

Alcide shook his head. "I don't think anyone can stop him if he wants to hurt you, or Sky."

"You should go find her," Sookie said. "And I should go to work."

They each went their separate ways, Alcide giving her a quick hug. It had been hard for him to watch her go back to Bill after everything that had happened. But he no longer regretted it. She was genuinely happy with Bill, and he couldn't begrudge her that.

Three days later, he found himself sitting in front of the house in Marthaville, waiting for the landlord to show. An hour late. Finally, he tried the number one more time. When the woman picked up, he said, "Mrs. Wilson. I believe we had an appointment for you to show me the house in Marthaville?"

"Oh, sweety, I am so sorry!" the woman said, "I already rented that one out just yesterday!"

He said the proper things and hung up, disappointed. It seemed to be just another in a long line of disappointments.

He cranked the engine over and prepared to leave when he saw a car pull into the drive. A woman got out and for a second, she looked so much like Sky that his heart skipped a beat. She turned to get a box out of the back seat and he was overcome by emotions deeper than he could have expected.

It was her.


	12. Mitch

**12. Mitch**

Alcide got out and saw her pick up two boxes from the car and head toward the house. She could barely see over the top of it, and he shook his head. "Let me help-"

She jumped so badly when he spoke that the top box slid off and landed with a crash. She tried to catch it, and fell over it, the second box rolling away from her with a corresponding 'crash'. Whatever was in it, it had definitely been glass.

He reached down to help her up when he heard another door slam shut. A man in a pair of tailored pants and a polo shirt walked up.

"You know, Sunshine," he said to Sky, "it's hard to imagine how you ever became a premier horse surgeon. If you were any more clumsy, I'd have to hire a horse surgeon for _you_." He seemed to notice Alcide then. "Who's the lumberjack? You finally hire someone to help you move like I told you to?" He reached down and gripped Sky by the upper arm, practically dragging her to her feet.

"Can you go inside and wait for me, please?" She dusted herself off.

"No. We need to get going. I'm on a schedule, you know. Let the moving man do it."

"He's not a moving man, Mitch. Do you mind?"

"Come on, can't it wait? The flight's in two hours." Then he looked Alcide over again. "You give up the faggot finally?"

"I did not 'give up the faggot', Mitch. Why do you always have to be such an asshole?"

"Come on, I was just joking, Sunshine. Oh, look, here he is now." He raised his voice to yell at the new arrival, "Hey, faggot! We've been waiting on you!"

"Fuck off," came the retort as the other man got out of his car.

"Mitch, I swear to god, if you piss him off again, I will leave with him."

He chuckled. "No, you won't, sugar. You love those horses too much." He patted her on the cheek snidely and Alcide growled.

Sky turned to go into the house and promptly tripped over one of the boxes. She jumped back up, her face red.

"Jesus Christ, Sunshine. You act like you're fucking stupid. You just dropped that a minute ago."

Alcide's fists clenched and he considered smashing the smug, nasty man's face in.

"You must be Alcide," came a voice from behind him as Sky went inside with the arrogant ass.

"Yeah," Alcide answered, staring at the disappearing pair with undisguised loathing. "How did you know?"

"She only gets flustered like that when she's happy, embarrassed, or when she's scared. She quit being happy, embarrassed, or scared about Mitch a long time ago. So it had to be you." He held out his hand, "I'm Carlos. I'm her assistant." Then he pointed at the vanishing couple. "It's not what you might think."

Alcide glared at him, "And what might I think?"

He shrugged, not intimidated. "I'm not sure, but I doubt you could land on the truth of it. She puts up with him because he got the horses."

"What?" Alcide asked.

"They were going to get married. He wanted a horse ranch but couldn't quite afford it. So she went in on it halfway with him. They got it in both of their names. When they split up, the judge awarded her the land, and him the horses. But she wanted the horses, not the land, and now he has both. He uses the horses to keep her from selling the land. And whenever they need therapy of any kind, guess who has to come running."

"She was going to marry that guy?" Alcide couldn't believe it.

"He's a sociopath. He charmed her until he got what he wanted from her. Then he left her for another woman, whom he married because she was richer than Sky's family." Carlos leaned on Sky's car. "He only asked her to marry him so she'd help him buy the stables. He races the horses. Does pretty well, but keeps all the money from it for himself, even though he forces her to be at his beck and call. He's an asshole, and she hates him as much as I do."

"That's blackmail," Alcide said, angry and sad for her.

"Yeah. But what's she going to do? He has agreed to sell them to her. For far more than she could ever afford."

Alcide regretted the loss of Marrok even more now. He would have intimidated the man into giving up the horses. But now he was helpless to help her.

"So we're flying to Memphis to take care of Casbolt's Thunder. It'll probably be four days there and another to get back."

"She's spending four days with that guy?" Alcide wondered how she could stand it.

Carlos sighed. "She don't do it for him, man."

"I'm going with you," Alcide told him.

"So you got a plane ticket already?" Carlos asked. "That's fast, man."

Alcide pulled his phone out and started typing. When he got the number he wanted, he dialed it. When he finally got to the manager he wanted, he said, "I'm Alcide Herveaux. I'll be flying on behalf of Eric Northman. I need to be on the six pm flight today."

"I'm sorry, sir, but we're not accepting more passengers for that flight," the woman replied.

"Do you know who the AVL is, Ma'am? If you wish to continue to do business with them, I suggest that you find a way to get me on that flight."

Her entire manner seemed to change instantly. Within a couple of minutes, he was on the flight. Just in time, too, because Sky came out of the house, looking worn and harassed already. Alcide could only imagine what four days with this guy would do to her.

She came toward him, tugging at the cloth that held her hair in its customary ponytail. "What are you doing here?" she asked, her face wary, but slightly hopeful. Then she sighed and said, "Of all the things I imagined happening if I saw you again, none of this was it."

"I was supposed to meet the landlord here and look at the house," he answered honestly. "I was hoping to rent it."

She blinked and her face closed off from wary to cold. "Well, it's taken." She turned away from him and he grabbed her arm. Turning her, he pulled her into his arms. "I got lucky. When I was looking for you, I couldn't find you. Then I just ran into you randomly here."

She stood stiffly against him. "Please, Sky. I'm sorry. I was trying to protect you. Watching you die was the worst day of my life."

"Well, I didn't die," she told him. "So deal with your guilt on your own. I have things to do." She pulled away from him and he let go, aching.

"I'm coming with you," he told her.

"You, too?" she demanded. "What is it about me that tells you people that it's okay for you to invite yourselves along on my life?" She sounded exasperated and impatient. She threw the bags in her hands into the trunk and walked away.

Alcide stopped her. "Who's 'you people'?" he asked.

"Well, Sam is coming. Him, I asked to come. But you and Eric? You are both overbearing, pushy, self-inviting jerks."

"Why did you ask Sam to go?" Alcide demanded, angry and hurt.

"Because he's good with animals. Did you ever think of that? And because he didn't run off into the night as soon as we had sex."

Blind rage rose in him, "You had sex with Sam?"

She looked like he had slapped her. "No, Alcide. I stupidly had sex with you, and then you ran off. Immediately."

Mocking laughter came from behind her and Alcide actually heard her teeth grind together.

"Chased another one off, did you?" Mitch asked, still laughing. "Maybe if you were a little less needy and demanding, you could keep one around for longer than a few hours, Sunshine," he told her, slapping her on the ass as he walked past.

Alcide almost hit him in the face, but Sky pushed him. "Leave off. It's none of your business," and Alcide was hurt to see her glaring at him instead of the offensive asshole walking off down the sidewalk.

"I know he's blackmailing you," Alcide told her.

She rolled her eyes, "Fucking Carlos. If you know that, then you know that there's nothing I can do, and nothing you can do. If you hurt him, I'll lose my horses. So just back off. And stay here."

"No," Alcide told her.

"What are you going to do that Eric can't, Alcide?"

He flinched, but said, "Protect you during the day."

"Sam will be there. And he'll actually be helping with the horses."

"I'm coming with you. We need to talk," he told her. "And I'm not leaving you alone with Eric. Or Sam."

"Really? Why do you care all of a sudden? You're the dog in the manger, Alcide. How apropos for a werewolf, don't you think?"

"It isn't like that, Sky," he argued as she got into her car and shut the door in his face as Mitch blared the horn on his expensive rental.

"Yes it is," she told him. "You just don't want to admit it to yourself." She put the car in gear. "Watch your feet," she warned and started backing out. He stepped back and watched her go.

Carlos came up beside him. "You ain't givin' up, are ya?"

"What choice do I have?" Alcide asked him. "She said no."

"She can't keep you off a public plane, and there's plenty of hotels in Memphis," Carlos told him. "I'm just sayin'."

Alcide followed him in the rental car and got on the plane. He charmed the little old lady across from Sky and Mitch into switching seats with him and sat down with a newspaper. He saw Sam a couple of seats up.

"You're bringing the lumberjack with you?" Mitch asked her. "I hope he doesn't scare the horses. He's kinda hairy." Then he laughed at his own joke.

Sky sighed and asked Alcide, "What are you doing here? I asked you to stay away."

He crooked his finger at her and she leaned toward him. He whispered, just below her ear, "It's a public place, Sky. And if you won't let me stay with you, there are plenty of hotels in Memphis." He nipped her earlobe slightly before pulling away and going back to his newspaper. Let her chew on that for a while.

He smelled her, even in the midst of the crush of people, and smiled.

When they arrived, it was dark. Eric met them at the front door. A limo waited for them, and Alcide heard Sky make a sound of disgust. Mitch got in, and Sam grabbed Sky's bags to put them into the back of the limo.

Sky walked away, Carlos following. She flagged down a taxi and the pair hopped in. Alcide jumped in beside her. He smiled at her as he was crushed up against her, the three of them straining the limits of the taxi seat.

"I'll take the limo," Carlos said, jumping out.

So Alcide listened as she gave the driver instructions and they moved out. He held her against him, despite the vacated spot beside her. She sat rigid beside him and he eased his hold on her. She moved away, looking out the window.

"So why are we here?" he asked.

"I don't know why you're here. But I'm here because Casbolt's Thunder needs surgery. The stable vet thinks he should be put to pasture, but I think from the x-rays that I can save his knee for racing." Her breath fogged the window as she spoke, firmly turned away from him.

"Sky, there's something you should know," he told her. But it was too late. The ride to the stables was short, and she jumped out before he could explain.

"It will have to wait," she told him, handing the cabbie some money.

The taxi had stopped beside the limo, and Eric stood beside it. As Sky headed past him, he moved in front of her, stopping her. "Do you need any help?" he asked.

"Yeah, move," she told him.

He stepped aside with a lifted brow and a smirking bow.

She moved past him at a trot, then picked up to a run. Carlos trailed behind her.

Mitch laughed. "Never get between her and those animals," he told Eric smugly. "She'll run you over. She probably fucks them."

Before Alcide could even react, Eric's fist snapped out as casually as if he were swatting a fly. Alcide was jealous, he wanted to be the one to beat the shit out of the guy.

"Arg! I think you broke my nose," Mitch groaned. "If you knew what a nasty whore she is, you wouldn't-"

This time, Alcide got to him before Eric did. He punched him in the gut.

"I'll have you both up on charges," Mitch whined, gasping for breath.

"Try it," Eric invited him, still as casual as if he were discussing the weather.

Alcide was fuming. He was burning to beat the man senseless. And it seemed that Mitch recognized it, because he took several steps back. He turned to the limo driver, "Take me to the hospital."

Mitch left and Sam said, "I just met him and I fucking hate that guy."

"He's blackmailing Sky," Alcide told them. "She got the ranch, but he got the horses. She wanted the horses, so he uses them to control and manipulate her."

"Not for long," Eric said. "I'm going to look around." He flitted away.

Sam sighed. "I guess I'm left to take the bags in."

Alcide helped, then Sam said, "I'm going to see if there's anything I can do to help."

They walked down to the barn and a worker pointed them toward the back. There, they found Sky and Carlos, with another man, looking at x-rays.

"He'll have to be in traction," the other man said. "He'll lose muscular strength and tone, as well as weakening the joints."

"Not with physical therapy in a pool," Sky told him. "Providing that fragment hasn't moved, the tendon won't be effected. All that will be required from there is for him to heal and maintain muscular motion. With a pure grass diet for a couple of months, he shouldn't scar-"

"You can't take him off his feed," the other vet argued, and Alcide wondered if the guy had ever seen Sky before.

"I can, and I am," Sky told him. "He will get all the grasses and herbs he'll eat, and no grains unless they are green."

"But-"

"Carlos, let's get him sedated."

"You're going to operate now?" the other man practically squealed. "You're wasting your time. If we leave him alone, he'll at least be good for breeding."

"Yes, I'm operating now. If that fragment moves, he's ruined for racing. This is a race horse, Mr. Lablanc. He's too young to go to stud, and has too much potential."

"I'll tell Mitch. He won't let you do this!"

"Mitch," she said coldly, her face inches away from Lablanc's, "brought me here exactly for this reason. Now get out."

She turned to Carlos, who was struggling with the big horse. "Where's Sam?" she asked him.

"I'm here," Sam said, coming around Alcide as Lablanc brushed past him.

Sky's eyes met Alcide's for a second, and she started to smile. Then she clearly remembered that she was mad at him and the smile vanished.

"Can you calm him?" she asked Sam. "Just long enough for us to give him a shot. Please?"

"I'll try," Sam answered, stepping up to the horse. He murmured and patted the horse until he stilled.

Carlos jabbed quickly, and the horse slowly drooped. Sky began to work a crank, and Alcide went over to help Sam arrange the horse on the table for Sky. Carlos began working a huge tube down the horse's throat, and Alcide looked away.

Sam and Alcide stepped back as Carlos began to help Sky get dressed in sterile clothing.

"You can leave if you like," she said through her mask. "This will take several hours."

Then she turned back to the horse and Alcide watched as she seemed to almost go into a trance. If it weren't a horse lying on the table, he would have felt like he was watching a medical show on TV. What struck him the most was how focused Sky was.

All of the awkwardness he knew in her was gone completely. She was totally focused on the job at hand, her motions spare and certain. He leaned against the wall, and found that watching her, even unable to see much of her at all, was an unaccounted pleasure.

Eric appeared beside him. "Did you know she's considered to be one of the top three horse surgeons in the world?" he said.

"No," Alcide answered. "I have to admit that I actually agree with Mitch on that. I would never have imagined she would be so incredible at this. She's sort of awkward."

"Really?" Eric asked. "I've never seen her be awkward."

Alcide smiled, Carlos' words coming back to him about her being like that almost exclusively when she was angry or attracted to someone. He could hope it meant that, despite his blood, maybe she wasn't falling for Eric.

"If that horse can be saved, she'll be the one to do it," Alcide told him.

"So what do you know about Mitch? You said he is blackmailing her."

"Apparently they bought this stables together. The judge awarded her the land and holdings, and awarded him the horses. Seems her family is quite well off."

Eric looked at him oddly. "She's well off on her own," he said. "She invented something or the other. Several something or others, actually."

"You checked up on her?"

"Of course. You don't think I'd ask just any human to marry me, do you?"

"What?" Alcide stared at him.

"Don't worry, she said 'no'," Eric told him. "I think she thought I was kidding."

"You weren't?" Alcide was furious.

Eric looked at him. "A high profile human wife for an elder vampire would be excellent for the AVL's image. Especially an animal surgeon. Humans love animals."

Alcide snarled at him. "You don't even like her," he said. "You think she's irritating."

"She's growing on me. And she's brave," Eric said. "Not to mention smart and sexy."

"Leave her alone!" Alcide told him, then growled, his fists clenching.

Eric's fangs clicked out. "Or what, 'were?"

"HEY!" Sky yelled at them. "Take it outside. I'm working. What the hell is the matter with you?"

Alcide looked at her, finding her bent over the horse, glaring at them with undisguised ferocity.


	13. Rolling Thunder

_Thank you for the TOTALLY AWESOME reviews! I can't tell you how much they make me smile. I feel like I'm walking on the moon. :)_

* * *

><p><strong>13. Rolling Thunder<strong>

"Sweat," Sky said, feeling a trickle on her forehead. Carlos wiped it away.

She went back to her work, ignoring the pair at the door who had ceased their posturing, at least for now. "I need the stronger glass," she told him. He pulled the magnifier away and replaced the end. She adjusted the distance and moved more flesh away.

She was nearing the tiny fragment of bone, but it was even more delicate work than she had anticipated. Holding steady, she carefully re-angled the glass so that she could see from another angle, and sliced another small cut in the muscle tissue around the tendon. If she removed too much, it would disrupt the general stability of the knee, so she had to find another angle.

"Sweat," she said again.

She was close enough to the fragment now that she should be able to extract it with a pair of 155mm tweezers. "One fifty-fives," she said. Like magic, they appeared in her hand.

Closing in on the fragment, she bit her lip. It was a crucial juncture. The fragment was so close that a single bit of pressure could push it into the delicate tendon. It could cut and snap away and Thunder would have to be put to stud.

As she approached with the tweezers, there was a sudden 'bang!' from out in the stable and a couple of stable hands laughed, calling to each other. Sky jumped so badly that she knocked the glass out of alignment.

"Fuck!" she swore. "Get them out of this barn!" she snarled at Carlos, who turned toward the doorway.

"I'll do it," Eric said. He flitted away, and Sky heard alarmed shouts and a banging door. Then he was back. "All done. You won't be bothered again."

She took a deep breath and reinstated the glass into position. "Blood," she said. Carlos patted the blood away from the wound and Sky bent forward again.

"Blood," she said, then "Sweat". Carlos took care of each in turn and she grasped the fragment with the tweezers. With aching slowness, she pulled it out, a millimeter at a time. "Basin," she said. Carlos held up a small shrapnel basin. She dropped the fragment in it.

"Sutures," she demanded. They were supplied. Slowly, carefully, she sewed the knee back up, careful to avoid pinching or pulling of the flesh.

Finally, aching but triumphant, she turned to Carlos. "I think we did it!" she squealed, hugging him. They jumped and hugged and celebrated for almost a full minute before she kissed him on the cheek. "You are awesome!" she told him.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves, both the excited and the fearful ones. "I'll clean up. You could use some sleep," she told him.

"Nah, I'll help. That's what you pay me for," he told her with a grin.

"Anything I can do?" Alcide asked, stepping in from the shadows at the doorway into the stable.

"What are you doing still here?" she asked. "You should have gone to bed hours ago."

He shrugged. "I couldn't have slept anyway. What can I do to help?"

"I changed my mind," Carlos said. "I'm going to bed after all." He walked away, leaving Sky floundering alone with Alcide.

"I have to put this stuff in that washer," she told him, indicating the industrial ultrasonic washer.

He helped her as she gathered and pre-washed things to go into the baskets. When she was finished, she pulled the mask and the lab clothes off. She knew that by industry standards, she overdid it, but she always felt that it was better to err at being too clean than the other way around.

As she put the dirty linen into the bin and started the washer, she finally had to turn around and face Alcide without the benefit of duty between them. He was standing with his arms crossed, watching her with a brooding look on his face.

"Thank you for the help," she told him.

"How did you get mixed up with Mitch?" he asked.

She sighed. "My parents introduced us. They really wanted me to marry him. I almost did. Now he owns the horses that I love, and I own the land he keeps them on. So I'm linked to him whether I like it or not. He left me the day after we signed the papers and 'celebrated' by having sex." She put quotation marks in the air around the word 'celebrate'. "Happy now? Is that what you wanted to know?"

"I'm just trying to help you," he told her.

"Well, I don't need help. It's not ideal, but the horses aren't mistreated, and I would do surgery on them anyway," she answered him.

She looked around, stretching. "I'm going to bed," she said.

"Alone?" he asked.

"What?" Anger rose in her.

"Is he making you-"

"How dare you? How dare you even insinuate such a thing to me? You really think I would let that man—any man—blackmail me into sexual favors? Have you lost your mind? I had no idea exactly how low your opinion of me was!"

He at least had the grace to look stricken by his disgusting allegations.

"That's my opinion of him, not you!" he objected.

"You know, I hear about how women have no internal monologue, but instead we have to say everything we think... but it's times like this when I wonder if you men even think before you say things. I appreciate that you don't know me very well, but I am frankly stunned that you would believe such a thing of me." She walked toward the door and he followed, opening his mouth to protest. "And before you say anything more, Mitch would never try to force me into sexual favors. He thinks I am disgusting and slutty. So don't worry, I won't be turning to prostituting for him anytime soon. Oh, and congrats on getting your man card back."

She turned away so he wouldn't see her tears, unaware that he could smell them anyway.

He stopped her. "Sky, I didn't mean it that way. I just want to protect you from him." He turned her toward him and she was enveloped in warm, strong arms.

She wanted to give in and let him hold her and cry hear heart out. Instead, she pulled away. "Haven't you noticed, Alcide, that every time you try to protect me, it just keeps going wrong? Why can't you just... I don't know. Put up with me. Or be my friend. Or something. Why always with the protecting bit? I'm twenty-eight years old. I think I've survived well enough without someone following me around and protecting me all the time. In fact, I needed less protecting before I met you than I have since you've been 'protecting' me!"

The look on his face wrung her heart. "Alcide, it's not this hard. It's not so very complex. I don't jump in bed with every man that I find attractive, or who finds me attractive." She put her hand on his cheek, "I'm not that person, Alcide. Whoever she is, you're going to have to let her go before you'll ever be able to get to know me."

She stepped back and put her hands in her pockets. "Let me go to sleep now. I just spent hours in surgery and I'm exhausted."

"Wait. There's something I have to tell you," he said.

"It can wait," she answered.

"But I-"

"Alcide. It can wait. Please. I'm too tired to deal with anything more this morning."

He nodded. "I'll walk you to the house?" She nodded and they walked quietly for a bit. "Sky, I'm usually much better at this. I'm really trying. It just seems like I can't do anything right around you, even though that's the only thing I want to do—what's right."

She nodded. "I know, Alcide."

"I really don't think that about you, Sky."

"Yes, you do, Alcide. First you thought I was kissing Eric, and then you thought I was letting Mitch blackmail me for sex. You really do think that about me."

"But I saw you with Eric."

"You don't know what you saw, Alcide." They stopped at a door to a guest bedroom. She turned to face him. "What you saw was him giving me the Goodfellas' kiss of if-you-fuck-me-over-I-will-kill-you. You know? The whole mafioso kiss on each cheek thing? That's what you saw. He was warning me of what would happen if I told anyone that the king has a witch illegally locked in his basement." She gestured at the door. "That's your room. Good night."

"But Sky, you did the same thing. You thought I was leaving because Mitch did."

She paused in the act of opening the door to her own room, "Do you not see the difference, Alcide?"

He shook his head.

She smiled sadly. "You did leave, Alcide." She closed her own door quietly behind her and laid her head back against it. Tears trickled down her cheeks and she dropped on the bed.

A quiet knock at the door made her sit up and try to get herself under control. She walked over, expecting to see Alcide. Eric leaned against the door frame.

"You are upset," he told her.

"You don't say," she retorted, sarcastic.

"You could marry me and then you wouldn't have to deal with any of this anymore."

She rolled her eyes. "Not that again."

He shrugged. "I thought you'd say that. You know, I could buy those horses for you."

She gasped. "What the hell is wrong with you people?" she cried. She slapped him. "I don't give a damn if you are a vampire! You have no right to treat me this way! Do I have 'prostitute' written on my forehead or something?" She realized that doors were opening down the hallway as she got louder and louder, Eric standing up now instead of leaning against the door. "Why are you people all convinced that I would fuck anything that moves just for some god-damned horses?" Her voice was positively shrill by that point, but she couldn't help herself.

"If it's any consolation," Mitch said from down the hall, "I never thought that. Only because I wouldn't let you fuck me for them."

She stared at him, open-mouthed. Finally, she said the only thing she could think of, "Oh, fuck off, Mitch."

She slammed the door behind her. She heard Mitch laugh and say, "I told you she was a nasty whore." There was a thump and a yelp, and she buried her head under a pillow.

Doors closed and she cried. Her door opened and closed. A weight pressed beside her on the bed. "Go away," she mumbled under the pillow.

"I was not indicating that I would only buy them if you married me and slept with me," Eric said.

She sat up. "Oh," she said, her voice as weak and humiliated as she felt.

"They have a good record of winning," Eric told her. "They would be a good investment for me. With proper care and a good surgeon on call, especially so."

"But then it would just be you in power over me, instead of Mitch. And Mitch doesn't want to have sex with me."

"We would be partners," Eric said. "Business associates. Unless you changed your mind about marrying me. Independent of the whole horse thing, naturally."

"I don't want to marry you," she told him.

He tucked a bit of her hair away from her face. "Because of the werewolf?"

She chuckled and shook her head. "Because of you, Eric. You're charming enough when you want to be, but you're an asshole in your own way."

He grinned. "It comes with age." Then he sobered. "I would never hurt you."

"No, of course not. Provided I walked the line and kept all of your sordid secrets and protected you from the prying eyes of the law when you chained people in your basement."

His eyes narrowed. "How did you know about that?"

She blinked at him. "I was being facetious... I thought."

His eyebrow flickered upward. "Well, there is that, I suppose."

"That's not really the life for me, Eric. I moved to Bon Temps thinking it was a sleepy little small town that needed a vet."

He grinned. "Imagine your surprise."

"Yes," she agreed wryly. "Imagine it."

He picked her hand up and kissed the back of it. "If you change your mind..."

"Good sleep, Eric."

He kissed her cheek again, and this time, she knew it was with something approaching genuine affection.

"Would you be angry with me if I bought the horses from Mitch?" he asked.

She shook her head. "If you promise not to abduct me and chain me up, I think I could live with it."

He grinned. "Only if you beg me to."

She chuckled, but he was gone. She shook her head and laid back, staring at the ceiling. In some ways, it would all be so much simpler if she could just say 'yes' to Eric. But every time she shut her eyes, she saw brown eyes and black hair and even felt the sweetness of fur under her hand.

Hours had passed since she had slept, and so sleep claimed her without her permission, and she found herself jerking awake, still dressed, when someone pounded on her door.

"Thunder's up!" Carlos called from outside the door.

She sat up, forgetting instantly that she was in the same clothes as yesterday. She bolted out the door, almost bowling Alcide over in her rush. He caught her and she clung to him for a moment, his body heat permeating her and turning her stomach into caged butterflies. His hands ran down her body as he caught her and then set her to rights.

She pulled away, not looking at him. She heard him following as she rushed out the front door and across the lawn. She found Lablanc with Casbolt's Thunder, and was pleased to see that he had helped the horse get up into traction.

"It's good work," Lablanc told her. "The x-rays show no damage to the tendon at all. I didn't think anyone could pull that off."

Sky smiled. "I'm pleased with the operation. Of course, it'll be months before we know if it was a success, but I think he's going to race again."

Lablanc shook his head and Sky felt renewed irritation.

"The whole water therapy business is unsubstantiated-"

"He will do the water therapy," she told him. "And he will be on grain and herbs—as much dandelions as we can get. Additionally, you will use sound therapy on his knee." When he looked ready to object, she said, "If you do not, I will find someone who will."

He suddenly backed off, and she realized that Alcide had walked up behind her, his arms crossed and a glare on his face. Leblanc stalked off, and she turned to look up at Alcide. "You're a bully," she said, but couldn't keep the grin off of her face.

"It helps being ten feet tall and a million pounds."

Reminded of a simpler time with him, she chuckled. "I thought you said you were eight feet tall and a thousand pounds."

"I was being modest. I hear women like that."

"Someone lied to you."

"Teach me, oh Wise and Womanly One," he told her.

She laughed openly. "You watch kids' movies!" she accused.

"I most definitely don't. You do. We watched that one together."

"You thumped your tail."

He winced and she stopped to look at him closely.

"Marrok thumped his tail."

They were somber now, and Sky realized something was wrong. When she had finished filling Thunder's manger with freshly mowed hay, she turned to him.

"You thumped your tail," she repeated, watching him closely.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Marrok did," he repeated stubbornly.

She narrowed her eyes, looking at him suspiciously. "Marrok is you."

He shook his head, his guilt obvious. "No. He's gone."

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" she demanded.

"I can't feel him anymore. He... he's gone."

"Oh god, because of what happened with me, isn't it? I'm so sorry, Alcide!" Then she stopped. "But you aren't, are you? You're glad."

"I'm getting used to not having to turn every full moon. To not having someone in my mind all of the time-"

"You got rid of Marrok?" she couldn't believe it.

"Not exactly. Not on purpose!"

"Alcide. He's a being. A soul. You can't just throw him away!"

"I didn't!" Alcide objected.

"Not exactly?"

"Not exactly," he agreed. "He went away on his own."

"Because of you. Because you blamed him when he acted like any animal would have when terrified."

"He killed you!" At the look on her face, he said, "Almost. And that's close enough."

"Alcide, even domesticated animals will hurt you when they're scared or in pain. Much less a wolf. You continue to ask me to be understanding of how you can act like I'm spreading my legs for anything that moves and all the things you say while 'protecting' me... but you can't forgive your wolf for being put into a situation not of his choosing? You and Eric, you did that to him. And... and your King. He didn't choose to be locked into a cell with a woman that terrified him. He was trapped and afraid. And now he's throw away like so much garbage."

He turned away. "I'm trying, Sky. I just can't forgive him."

"No, you can't. Not until you forgive yourself. It's yourself that you're the most angry with. You're punishing yourself by pushing him away. You feel like you should have controlled him."

"I never knew who I was without the wolf," Alcide told her. "Now I'm finding out."

"No, Alcide, you aren't. There is no you without the wolf, there's just you lying to yourself. Marrok and Alcide are two half of the same soul. When I was with you that night, I understood that. I saw you in him and him in you. Without all of yourself, Alcide, you are broken." She backed away from him. "He's part of you. If you choose to be half of a person, you will never know if you're loved because of who you are, or because of who you choose not to be. Anyone who loves you when you're pretending to be something you aren't, doesn't love the real you, just the reflection. And that's not real love at all. You're stealing that chance for real love from whomever you end up with."

She smiled sadly. "You're pushing me away, Alcide. You don't want to be loved as half a man. You could never love someone who could love you while you were less than your real self. You hid the truth from me and then you punished me for not seeing it, when you weren't even anywhere around me."

The sun crept behind a cloud and she shivered, wrapping her arms around her. She looked up at the sky and knew it was going to rain. Her blue eyes met his sad brown ones. "We're doomed without him."

She walked back toward the house, leaving him standing there in the grass. She didn't bother to tell him that she had loved the wolf first. If he didn't understand that already, then he might never get it at all.

When the storm rolled in and the thunder came, she shivered in her room, that same sense of impending malice settling over her again. Darkness crept in and Eric knocked at her door. He had... persuaded... Mitch to sell him the horses at a fair price.

"What's bothering you?" he asked.

"Something's terribly wrong," she told him. "I don't know what, and I don't know where or why... but something's wrong."

When his cellphone beeped, she jumped so hard she almost fell off of the window seat.

"The witch has broken her agreement and convened a circle," Eric told her, looking at her searchingly. "She has vowed a resurrection."

"I don't know what that is," Sky told him.

"It's bad. It's very bad. I must go. Alcide and Sam must return to Bon Temps immediately. You may want to stay here and avoid-"

"No," she said firmly, standing up.

He sighed. "I thought not."

And, in his usual way, he was gone. She doubted that he would be flying home that night. Unless vampires could fly on their own power, then maybe so.

She was packed in record time and had her bags at the front door even as Alcide and Sam came down the hallway. Carlos wasn't far behind, and unfortunately, Mitch followed close on his heels.

"Leaving so soon?" he asked smugly. "I sold your horses to your vampire lover," he told her, "and I made a killing off of him."

She finally got to do what she'd wanted to do for almost seven years. She kneed him in the nuts as hard as she could. The other guys stepped back almost as one.

"I never had sex with him. And if I never do, he'll still be a thousand times better lover than you are, you piece of shit. Get off of my property within the week, or I will have friends evict you in the cruelest possible manner." She bent down and looked at him. "Or maybe I'll come do it myself. You have no fucking idea how much I loathe you. And if you hurt a single one of those horses on your way out, let me make you a personal promise. There will be nowhere for you to hide. I will find you, and I will knock you out. When I'm done, you will be missing all of your skin and never be able to sit down or wear clothes or fuck again."

"You wouldn't dare," he said. "You're a bleeding heart-"

She took him by the hair and lifted his face to hers. "Do I look like I'm joking? As a general rule, I hold the life of human beings far over that of animals. But I make exceptions for human beings who don't qualify as human or animal. You are beneath both, and if you harm those horses, I will treat you like you have treated me for six long fucking years." She slammed his head back on the ground.

She stood up. "If I didn't have a plane to catch, I would beat the shit out of you. I've never hated anyone so much in my life."

He looked at Alcide, "You see what happens when you leave her?" He laughed weakly.

"You're a delusional asshole," Alcide told him. "I'll be back here in a week, and if you're still here, I'll get that chance I've been wanting to beat you within an inch of your life."

"I ain't scared of you, lumberjack," he muttered.

"Then you ain't very smart," Alcide replied.

Sky kicked Mitch again.

"Easy there," Sam told her. "Don't leave any marks." He took her elbow and led her out the door, while Carlos grabbed her bags along with Alcide. Sam went back in for his.

When they got out, Carlos burst out laughing. "You really have no idea how satisfying that was," he told Sky. "Though you know, I agree with him. I didn't know you had it in you."

They got in the cabs and went to the airport. The small prop plane took off as soon as they were on board.

Sky tried to enjoy the flight, but the sense of something horribly wrong continued to increase until she was jittery and skittish.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked her.

"Something's gone wrong," she answered miserably. "I can feel it."

He patted her on the arm. "We're landing soon. Maybe you'll feel better once we're back in Louisiana."

But Sky knew better, though she didn't say so out loud.


	14. Assassin

**14. Assassin**

Alcide listened for a while as Sky began to chatter to Sam in a shrill, off-kilter voice. Her comments were spasmodic, as if she were paranoid and insecure.

"Did you know that a cat's purr is the exact frequency for healing bones and stimulating them to growth?" she asked randomly.

"No," Sam told her. "I didn't. Is that true?"

"Yep. Twenty-five to fifty hertz is the frequency that helps to heal and stimulate bones. That's why cats seem to have 'nine lives'. And..."

Alcide tuned it out as they continued to chat, sitting back and leaning his head back against the seat. He thought about her comments the day before. He'd started to think that he was happy as he was, without his wolf. But her statements brought him a great deal of deep thinking.

He didn't want to lose her. He'd thought being free of Marrok would release him to be with her without fear or hesitation. He was no danger to her without Marrok. Yet she was right. He didn't feel as if she wanted him for who he really was. He wanted her to want him without Marrok, but he didn't. He wanted to have Marrok and still be safe for her.

He thought of her, and how sweet and kind she was, and how at odds her treatment of Mitch was with her real self. Somehow, though, it didn't surprise him. She was capable of violence. She had slapped him, and thrown a lamp. But he'd never seen it turned on anyone with real harmful intent.

He couldn't help but wonder how she felt about it. He was pretty sure he knew. She was probably being eaten alive with guilt, although any one of the men in the room would have done the same thing without the least bit of guilt, ever.

He leaned forward to look at her profile. How could she not know how beautiful she was? Even tense and exhausted, she looked like a million bucks. Her hair fell in waves around her face and he wanted to bury his hands in it.

The plane dipped and he realized it was landing. He hadn't found a house. He hadn't gotten her telephone number or anything. He had just argued with her and picked fights with her and... he listened to her easy banter with Sam and hated himself.

He followed her off the plane, ducking all the way out.

Once off, he helped load her car, then waited for Sam to step off towards his vehicle. It was clear that he had been hoping that Alcide would go first, but Alcide wasn't going to leave without speaking with Sky alone.

She leaned back against her car. "I'm going to the mansion," she told him, her jaw set in a belligerent line.

He nodded. "I expected you would. I'll follow you there."

"You will?"

He stepped closer to her, running his knuckles down her cheek. "I know you're angry with me, Sky. I don't blame you. But I didn't mean to hurt you. Ever."

"I'm not sure that makes it better," she said, her voice coming out in a whisper.

He loved that he could do that to her. He smiled. "Do you know of any man that's going to always get it right?"

She chuckled, a breathy, light sound. Then she grinned up at him. "If it wasn't for the killing people, eating people, threats of bodily harm, kidnapping, extortion, running faster than the speed of sound, throwing people to the wolves, and the whole dead thing; Eric doesn't do too bad."

"He's got a thousand years on me," Alcide told her. "I'll catch up." He pressed his body against her.

"I..." she started to say something, but he was nibbling at her neck and she stopped. She tried again, "Stop. I can't think when you're doing that."

"Really? You think too much, so that means I'm not doing it enough." He pulled her hair backwards so that he could reach more of her delectable neck.

She clung to him and he felt her leg slide up the outside of his. He found her mouth with his and tasted her deeply, reveling in the feel of her body against his and her response to his touch. His hand ran up the side of her body, grazing the side of her breast, and she groaned into his mouth. Emboldened, he pressed against her, thrusting as if he were inside her and she made a soft sound that brought him to the brink of forgetting where they were—or more accurately, where they weren't.

"Ahem," someone behind him cleared his or her throat.

He jumped away, feeling like a schoolboy caught in the act during assembly.

"I think there are more appropriate places for that?" the elderly, rather portly security guard suggested.

"Of course," Alcide responded. "Good night."

"Hmm, good morning, more like it," he said, trundling off toward the elevators.

Alcide turned to find Sky holding in laughter, her hand covering her mouth. Her blue eyes, so similar to her name, danced with mirth. "He told you," she said slyly, then broke into giggles.

"Yes," he admitted. "Yes he did."

She sobered immediately, though, and his heart fell. "We should hurry to the mansion, Alcide. I still really do have a bad feeling."

He nodded. "I'll follow you," he told her.

They got in their vehicles and headed for the King's mansion. When they arrived and went inside, they found the place astir with people. "What's going on?" Sky asked.

"Preparation for resurrection tomorrow," one of the guards replied, looking her up and down in a way that made Alcide bristle.

"Resurrection?"

"The witch is going to try to make them walk into the sun again. She tried it once before, but the King prevented it from killing more than a few," the guard answered. "Sorry, gotta run. Be careful if you're staying here today. If they get out of that silver, they'll kill you to get outside."

Sky exchanged a look with Alcide. "They're in silver?"

"Yeah. Only way to keep them from walking right out into the daylight. See you tonight," he said, rushing away.

Sky ran for the steps, heading for the dungeon below. She found them each in a cell, guards standing outside of them.

"You should not be here," Bill told them. Sookie was beside him.

"I won't let them out, no matter what," she told Sky.

Sky nodded. "I understand."

She looked at Eric, and her heart twisted. Kneeling beside him, she reached out to touch one of the chains. "Is this truly necessary?"

"I am very old, Sky. It may not be enough."

"It hurts you."

"The sun would destroy me in seconds." He smiled slightly, "So are you going to agree to marry me now?"

She tried to smile. "If you're trying to play on my sympathies, sir, I'll have you know that I'm quite a vicious beast, myself. I suspect that Mitch may never reproduce now, for certain."

His face sobered. "You must be careful today. If any one of us gets free, do not try to save us. You will die a certain, and probably gruesome death."

"Would you like for me to stay here?" she asked him.

"I would rather you not. I do not wish you to suffer as I know you would from watching my suffering."

"I can handle it," she answered. "If you can survive suffering it, I can survive watching it."

"Sookie will be here with us," Eric answered.

Sky looked over at the blond and their eyes locked for long moments. "I won't let them get free. I'll put more silver on them if it will save them."

Sky's eyes returned to Eric. She grasped his cool, hard shoulder before standing up and turning to leave again. Back upstairs, she said softly, "I know he has done terrible things, but he's right. It hurts to see him like that."

Alcide's heat against her was reassuring and grounding. His lips against her hair and the tickle of his beard through it also comforted her. "He'll be okay. He has lived a long time."

She sighed and snuggled closer to him.

"It's nice not to have to break my back bending over to give you a kiss on the head," he said. She looked up at him, and found him also trying to smile and not quite making it.

"I'm afraid," she said softly. "Something terrible is coming."

"The witch-"

"This is more than that, Alcide. It's like when the 'weres came to my house-"

He jerked away from her, gripping her by the arms. "Do you have that same feeling again?" he demanded.

She nodded, wrapping her arms around herself.

He lunged for the stairs down to the dungeons.

"Eric!" He stopped at the door. "Did you plan for werewolves?"

"Plan what?"

"What if a pack attacks here today? Did you prepare for that?"

"Why would we have prepared for that?" Eric growled.

"You didn't tell them?" Alcide asked Sookie.

"You said you weren't sure!" she objected.

"Sky thinks they are coming today." He drew a deep breath. "Well, she feels like they're coming today," he amended.

"She feels like it?" Bill asked, his voice irritated. "Are we living according to the whims of humans now?"

"When I was at her house, the Shreveport pack came. She sensed them and got us out just before they attacked. In fact, Marcus howled as we were leaving and forced my transformation." He gripped the bars of the cell they were in. "Please tell me that this facility can withstand a 'were attack."

"It cannot," Bill admitted. "And we dare not leave the silver, in case the witch casts resurrection today."

Alcide couldn't believe he hadn't spoken up. He cursed himself for every kind of a fool. He'd known all along that Marcus and Debbie were up to something. But he hadn't wanted to believe it, because he hadn't yet let go of Debbie.

He looked up the steps at Sky and realized the gravity of what he had done. In some ways, he had tried to recreate Debbie in Sky, only without the cheating. But since he was trying to recreate Debbie, he'd seen cheating where there was none. Because he hadn't let go of one woman, he had missed what was right in front of his face all along.

He ran up the stairs to her, taking her face in his hands. He kissed her, a firm, certain kiss.

"I'm not sure it's them-"

"It's them. I know it is. Before today, even when they attacked you, when they attacked Sookie... I didn't see Debbie for what she really is. And I didn't see you for what you really are. The witch was right, Sky. There's magic in you. They're coming. There's no doubt of it. And the vamps can't help us. We have to fight, and we have to do it alone."

"Not entirely alone," she told him. She picked the phone up and called Sam.

Alcide felt a rising tide of jealousy, then let it go. This wasn't Debbie. And she was right—he was judging her on another woman's merits. Or lack thereof.

"How long do you think we have?" Sky asked.

"A few hours. They won't attack until late afternoon, but not so late that the vamps can come help combat them."

She nodded and dialed again. He heard Carlos's voice at the other end of the line, but took off to find a guard and warn them of what was coming. He heard a car a few minutes later and saw Sam get out of his truck from an upstairs window. Sky spoke to him for a few minutes, and he took off toward the woods at a run.

From his vantage point, Alcide saw the shapeshifter turn into a bird and flap away. Perhaps they would have some idea of how long they had.

He went in search of the armory, finding it surprisingly well stocked. Sky came up behind him. "What have you got?" she asked.

He stepped back to let her get a look. She started pulling things out that he didn't even recognize.

"What is that?" he asked her.

"That's a trigger," she replied. "We can rig up some boobie traps."

He chuckled. "Did you just say 'boobie trap'?"

She gave him a sly grin. "I did, sir." Then her smile turned downright cold, and he felt a shiver run down his spine.

"Here's something you didn't know about me, Alcide. I wasn't always going to be a veterinarian. The FBI, the CIA, and even the NSA were all vieing for my resume because of my skill with a weapon. When I found out that I would be trained as a certain kind of spy, I declined. I do not wish to be an assassin. But that doesn't mean I didn't learn anything along the way."

His eyebrows rose to his hairline. "From assassin to veterinarian? That's a huge leap," he told her.

"Not so much when you realize that I thought I would be doing something to save the country," she answered, pulling more stuff out of the pile. "So instead of saving the world, I just decided to save what animals I could."

She started stacking his arms with things that made him want to run away. "Is this going to be dangerous?" he couldn't stop the question.

"Yes," she answered. "But not for you. Unless you step in the wrong spot."

"I can't believe you were going to be an assassin," he told her two hours later as they shut the front door.

"What?" Sam demanded, having rejoined them and given them what little information he had on the pack. They were definitely in the area and in force.

"I was courted by the letter agencies when I was young," Sky told him. "But when I found out I would be a covert assassin, I declined."

Alcide almost laughed aloud when Sam echoed his earlier comment; "To be a vet?" the shapeshifter demanded in surprise.

She put her hand on her hip. "Well, I'd like to think that I'm a good one-"

An explosion rocked across the lawn and howls erupted.

"It's on," Sky said and raced for the upstairs.

Alcide went to the other side of the house as another explosion rocked the building. Gunfire erupted from Sky's window, and he shivered. Once upon a time, those wolves out there would have been him.

As if having read his mind, he heard Marcus's howl rise, the only howl in the area that had the ability to force the transformation on Alcide. He felt nothing. He picked up the gun, knelt at the window, and fired out of it. Wolves fell to his shots, but he had never been exceptional with a weapon. Many got through.

They struck Sky's second line of defense, and Alcide ducked inside the window and felt sick. Wolves died by the dozens as they reached the buried mines. They hadn't dug very deep to place them—but they hadn't needed to.

Alcide felt a pain in his heart and wondered how he could ever look at Sky again, knowing she had killed his kind so wantonly, so willingly. Then he hated himself for a hypocrite as he ducked over the window sill and shot more wolves.

But even as the wolves died, he saw exactly what Sky had predicted. From the treeline emerged the witch and her coven.

Sky appeared beside him, holding a gun with a scope on it. She sat it down and aimed, then adjusted the scope. The gun barked and a bright golden glow blossomed around the witch.

"Fuck," Sky swore.

Alcide realized she was sweating. Then he realized something else. He could smell her tears. She was not unmoved by what she was doing at all.

But that did not deter her. She aimed again, and one of the witches beside Antonia fell. She aimed again, and another died.

After the third one, the others seemed to realize what was happening, and some of them broke and ran for the woods. Another of those that stayed, died. The gun barked yet again, and then the witch stopped. She began chanting, and Sky grabbed Alcide's hand and ran for the door. The room exploded behind them.

Sky let go of him, still holding the gun.

"Holy shit," Sam said from behind them. "You're picking them off one by one."

The sounds of howling and gunfire were all around now. Sky's handgun barked and Alcide turned to see a 'were transform back into his human state.

"We've got to protect the vampires," Sky said. "We've cut down their numbers, but I don't think it's going to hold them for long. We have to hold out until nightfall."

"We'll never make it," Sam said. "That's still two hours away."

"Don't write us off yet," Sky told him. "I threw in a few surprises for the witches. I don't know what that gold glowy shield thing does, but unless it's more powerful than an explosion or two, this may be over sooner instead of later."

She tossed the gun with the scope and it skidded across the room. "Good gun, but the sights are off by a few millimeters. Very sloppy of the guards."

Another explosion rocked the compound, this time much bigger than the others. Sky dropped to the floor. "I hope that didn't hit any guards." She shimmied forward under a table until she was looking through the bannister at the door.

Alcide turned and shot two 'weres who came up from the back. Sam shifted into a mouse and zipped away.

"Be careful," Sky warned. "There are still three more charges somewhere."

"You kept count?" Alcide asked her.

"Didn't you?" she answered.

"No..."

"Well, you should. You don't want to leave undetonated boobie traps just laying around."

The door slammed open and Antonia and four witches walked in.

"For your crime of aiding these vampires," Antonia said, lifting her hand, "I sentence you to death by fire!"

She began to mutter, and Sky picked off one of the other witches. Before she could fire again, though, the floor fell out from under Alcide as it exploded. Landing hard on the ground, he looked over to see Sky, and the world fell away with the floor.

Her entire lower body was on fire.


	15. Of Death

**15. Of Death**

He couldn't reach her. There was a wall of fire between them so thick that he could barely see her. He heard her shriek with pain and he almost plunged into the fire, but his body refused. He saw her rolling, patting at the fire with her hands and heard the terrible sounds of her screams.

The terrible sound hammered into his very soul and he landed on his knees, a guttural, agonized, inarticulate wail emanating from his own throat without his conscious control. He searched for a way to get to her that wouldn't consume him before he even got there.

Then the fire died instantly, though he saw that she was still on fire. He leaped forward, but the witch landed in front of him, between him and Sky. Two wolves leaped down, and by their scent, he recognized Marcus and Debbie.

"I'll kill you all," he said. It wasn't a threat. He meant to do it, or die trying.

He stepped forward and Marcus leaped on him. He caught the wolf by the neck, but Marcus was in his magical form, and Alcide was not. Claws raked his belly and pain screamed in his body. Marcus squirmed, his teeth setting into Alcide's wrist.

Blood flowed, but Alcide did not relax his grip on Marcus's neck. Snarls sounded from behind him and he felt teeth at the back of his leg. He cried out as pain flared, and barely managed to wrest Debbie free before she had hamstrung him.

He threw her with all of his superhuman strength, and she struck the wall with a yelp.

Marcus's claws left a trail down his side, and more blood flowed. He dimly heard Marnie laugh. "The boy with no wolf," she mocked. "Not so dangerous now, are you. You should have heeded your wolf's fear of me," Antonia said through Marnie's lips.

Alcide saw Debbie coming back and this time he threw Marcus. The wolf skidded across the ground. Alcide caught a glimpse of Sky beyond him and his heart ached. She was crawling across the floor, leaving a bloody trail behind her as she tried to escape.

He tried not to think of the terrible pain she must be in. Her hands were shredded and he saw the white of bone through the charred remnants of her legs. Fury born from agony rose in him and he growled at Marcus.

He heard Debbie behind him and he whirled and grabbed her as she jumped for his neck. He threw her at Marcus and they tumbled over each other like pins in a bowling alley. He followed it up with a powerful kick, and was gratified to hear bone crunch, though he didn't know whose.

He picked Marcus up by the neck and began to squeeze. Claws raked him and he ignored the pain that flared. He wasn't going to win this fight—he couldn't. But he would take Marcus with him, if it was the last thing he did.

He knew immediately that it was Debbie whom he had broken, but it wouldn't hold her off long enough for him to finish Marcus. He felt the leg tear. Felt himself falling. He saw her coming for him and knew that in seconds, his throat would be gone. It was the wolf way. He tightened his grip on Marcus, falling to one knee.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, Marcus began to twist and jerk and writhe for his very life. But Alcide clung to him.

A sudden, violent roar filled the room, cutting through the smoke and Marcus's snarls with terrifying clarity. Debbie fell, her human form restored in death. Her eyes stared at him in silence as a small trickle of blood fell from a gunshot wound in the dead center of her forehead.

Alcide looked over to see the scope gun clatter out of Sky's mangled hands and hit the ground.

Marcus took advantage of his second of lost self-control and lunged. Alcide felt his eye pop as Marcus bit him in the face. He didn't care. Marcus had used the last of his strength. With his good eye, Alcide saw Antonia kick the gun away from Sky and then felt rage flare as she kicked Sky in the face, knocking her to the ground and leaving a smear of blood and soot on the wall where she had been slumped.

Marcus twitched in his hands, then shimmered. He dropped the dead body to the ground, then realized how much blood he had lost. He was dying as surely as Sky was.

He tried to go to her, but his body refused to work once more. He fell forward, realizing he felt no more pain and knowing that meant it was the end.

"Well," Antonia said. "It was a noble effort. But not good enough."

She stepped over a burnt beam toward Alcide.

He looked at Sky and saw that she was crying. She reached for him and he felt despair run through him on a profound level.

"Marrok," she whispered, her voice hoarse, "help us." Her head fell and she sobbed.

Alcide closed his good eye and felt pain again. It tore through his body and he convulsed. He thought he saw the wings of death, then realized it was just smoke, rising from the ashes of the tortured mansion.

He convulsed again, and then he was free of his human form and there was only fury and fear and violence in him. He snarled at Marnie and jumped on her. The scream of her dying was music to his ears. The ears of a werewolf.

He tore her throat out in his rage, jerking and pulling until flesh came free. He dropped the broken, bloody throat on her as she choked and spasmed in the claws of death. Then he forgot her and trotted over to where Sky lay.

He licked her face and tasted tears and death. She cried and he felt her pride in him. "Good boy, Marrok," she whispered. "Good boy. But we really do need to talk about the licking."

He got up, feeling the prompting of the man within. He trotted down the hallway and down the steps. Guns pointed at him, and he let go so that the man could return. He knelt with the man and told the vampires that the witch was dead.

"Sky...dying..." he said.

"I know," Eric said. "I can feel her. Get this silver off of me now!" he screamed at Sookie.

It was immediately clear to Alcide that he'd been demanding it for a good while. He was gratified to know that Eric had felt it and, while helpless to do anything, had at least wanted to help her. It must have been terrible to be a thousand year old vampire and to find yourself tricked into helplessness.

He dropped onto his hand, blood all around him. He heard his own heartbeat slowing. There was barely enough blood left to push through his veins.

Eric stopped at his side. "Save her," Alcide told the vampire.

"I cannot. She is too far gone," Eric answered. He looked at Bill, now standing and rubbing burned, chafed wrists. "Heal him. Quickly."

Then he was gone. Alcide was offered blood and at first refused. But he felt Marrok's objection, and he knew he owed the wolf. He drank, reluctantly at first, then freely as he felt health course through him.

He heard an unholy shriek from above and staggered to his feet. But then Eric arrived, laying Sky down gently on the ground. "Even if we took turns giving her blood, we could not save her," he admitted.

"Turn her," Alcide demanded.

"No!" Sky objected. "I can barely live with what I've done today, Alcide. Please, don't do that to me. I don't want to live. I don't want to remember people dying at my hands. I don't want to be a killer forever!"

"I can't," Eric said. "If I turn her like this, she'll be like this forever."

She looked at Eric and touched his cheek, jerking her hand away when it hurt. "Are you crying, Eric?"

"I should have glamoured you into marrying me," he told her.

She smiled, a small, gentle smile. "You wouldn't. You know I love Alcide." Then her body arched and she gritted her teeth, gasping. When she settled again, she said, "Promise me that no matter what he says, you won't do it. Don't make me live with what I did today, Eric." When he looked away, she grabbed him with a small gasp of pain. "Promise, Eric!"

"I swear it," he told her.

Alcide grabbed him by the shirt. "How can you do that? Don't you care about her at all? Even a little?"

Eric just looked at him.

"Alcide, if you care for me, if you love me or if you could love me, you won't do that to me," she said, her voice weaker. "Please. I didn't want to be a killer. I wanted to save lives." A sob escaped her and she grimaced with pain. "Today I became everything I didn't want to be." A tear ran down her cheek.

"What's going on—Oh my god!" Sam rushed into the room, stopping abruptly as he saw Sky.

"The witch is dead," Sky told him. She lifted a hand, crusted with soot and charred skin. She immediately withdrew it, "Sorry." Then, "Everything's going to be okay."

"Except you," he said. Then he shifted, dropping his clothes. He laid down beside her, not quite touching her and began to purr.

She smiled and patted him. "I'm afraid it's too late for that, Sam. But you are dear to try."

Her eyes met Alcide's then. "I'm sorry. I should have told you that I love you. That I love all of you—both of you. Tell Marrok. And tell him how proud and grateful I am that he came when he was most needed."

Alcide choked on the pain in his throat. "He knows. He felt it in you."

"I don't want to live," she said. Her head fell to the side. "I can't bear it." There was silence for a second. "No, I'm not done. But I did something. I made things."

"Who is she talking to?" Bill asked.

"She's dying, she's hallucinating," Eric said.

"No!" Alcide denied the facts in front of him. "No. She can't die." He looked up. "Do something! Anybody!"

Eric stood up and stepped back. He opened his wrist and stepped toward Sky. "The only thing to do now is to make her comfortable until she's gone."

He knelt down beside her head and turned her toward him.

"No!" she shrieked. "No, please, you promised!"

"It will just dull the pain," he promised her. "That's all, Sky, that's it." He reached toward her mouth.

A powerful force struck him, knocking him backward. For an instant, it seemed as if the image of an enraged white wolf hovered over her form, before drifting away like smoke.

"She's got magic in her," Alcide told him. "The witch felt it."

"She's a witch?" Bill objected.

"No," Eric said. "I feel nothing. Do you?" He looked at Sookie, who shook her head.

"Then who is she talking to?"

Sookie reached out and touched her on the temple. With a startled cry, she yanked her hand back. Sky continued to talk to an invisible something beyond Alcide.

"It's that wolf. She doesn't want me in Sky's mind. She's talking to the wolf."

Everyone turned to look behind Alcide. "There's nothing there," Eric said. "She's hallucinating."

"No," Sookie said adamantly. "There's a wolf. And she does not want me reading Sky's mind right now."

**OoOoOoO**

The golden eyes stared at her with a direct, penetrating gaze, and Sky felt as if the she-wolf could see all the way into her soul.

"Are you done, then? Have you done all in the world that you sought to do?"

"No," Sky answered honestly. "I've done a lot, but I wanted to do more. I wanted to help. To save lives." She felt the horror of the day rise up in her, faces of those whose lives she had ended. "But I took them instead. I promised myself never... but I did it."

"Why?"

"I... I was protecting the vampires. I was protecting Alcide."

"You are dying."

"I know. I don't want to live. I don't want to live with these faces in my memory."

"They threatened you and the ones you love. They attacked, unprovoked. They gave up their lives willingly in order to steal others' lives. Do you not think it justified?"

"No," Sky admitted, sobbing. "I can't justify it. I can't forget their faces. I can't stop thinking of how their families will feel, knowing their loved ones are dead."

"Yet you expected to have to live with that, and you did it anyway."

"Yes," Sky said. "I did. I knew it would hurt. But I... I love him. I love each of them. I couldn't throw their lives away to people who wanted them for no good reason."

"Do you not think that the lives you have saved are greater than the ones you have taken? You have saved many lives, not only the ones you saved this day."

"People, even animals, are not replaceable. Each life matters on its own merits," Sky responded. "I have no right to judge."

The wolf sat down. "You must live, Woman-of-the-sky. There are more lives at stake in the future. Lives you will save because you use the magic in you."

Sky sighed. "I have no magic," she told the wolf.

"All humans have magic," the she-wolf responded. "But not all of them use it. Many live desperate lives and give up everything they love. The magic of humans is in doing what they love and giving to others. Without that, their magic dies as their love does. You used your magic and did what you loved instead of what everyone else demanded of you. That is where the magic happens."

She walked toward her, and Sky reached up to touch her, but her hand passed through her.

"I'm dreaming," she said.

"No," the wolf said. "And neither are you to die."

Sky screamed as pain blazed through her and she felt herself ripped from existence. She was dragged across a great black chasm, and screamed and shook as fires licked at her again. Then, there was only blissful darkness and dreams came upon her like the falling petals of a rose.


	16. Of Duty

**16. Of Duty**

Alcide jerked back and shielded his eyes as Sky suddenly seemed to erupt in a shower of extreme brilliance. When the light faded, he dropped his arm, as the others did.

Where Sky had been sat a white wolf, her fur pure and perfect, her eyes gleaming gold. She sat staring at him.

"Sky was a werewolf?" Sookie blurted.

"No," Alcide said. "'Weres are born, not made. I... don't know what this is." He was wary. She didn't smell like a wolf. She smelled... like an angel.

The wolf's eyes left his and she looked at Sookie.

Sookie jumped, then said, "She says that Sky can live, but there is a price."

"What?" Alcide demanded. "She hasn't paid enough yet?" he yelled, anger and pain burning him.

The wolf's eyes met his again.

"The price is no longer hers to pay," Sookie said, "but yours. She wants to know if you are willing to pay the price?"

Alcide didn't ask. He didn't care. "Yes," he said.

"You don't even know what it is!" Sookie argued. Bill grasped her arm as she started forward.

"It is his choice, not yours," Bill said to her.

"I'll do it, if Alcide won't," Eric said.

Alcide growled at him.

"You must protect her," Sookie said when the wolf looked at her again. "As long as she lives in the mortal plane, Sky will continue to heal on the plane of life. They are linked now. If one dies, the other will die."

Alcide blinked. "Why are you taking such a terrible risk?" he asked the wolf. "Sky might still die, her wounds were terrible."

The wolf looked back at him again, "Because Sky kept her animal magic alive. Because she gave up family and friends, everything. All because she would not give up her love for life. She chose animals to love and give life, and so they have answered her need as she answered theirs," Sookie related, tears running down her face. "Humans so often sacrifice the ones they love in order to find peace and happiness for themselves. Sky sacrificed herself so that the ones she loved could live. For that, I am willing to take this risk." Alcide understood that Sookie was saying it as if the wolf herself was saying it.

"Now it is your turn. You must care for me and watch over me on the mortal plane. It will not be easy. There are many things that will sense my presence here and will hunt me. If you fail to protect me, we will all die. But consider carefully, for if you fail to protect me, she will be trapped on the plane of life with no way to return. The stakes are high."

"I love her. How can I not try?" Alcide knelt on one knee to look the wolf in the eyes. "I will protect you."

"I will protect you, as well," Eric said.

Sookie gasped. "The evil that will come for me is greater than yours, vampire," she said to Eric as the wolf's eyes gazed directly at him.

"She gave her life for mine, when I was helpless," Eric said. "I can do no less for her and still call myself a man."

"I will help," Sam said.

"Me, too," Sookie told her.

"I will do what I can, but my responsibilities lie elsewhere," Bill stated.

"She knows," Sookie said.

The white wolf stood.

"So be it. Your pledge is sealed and our fates are linked," Sookie said in a whisper. But there wasn't a man in the room that didn't hear it clearly, and feel the finality of it.

Sky would live or die and be trapped forever, depending upon their actions.

And Alcide was afraid. He had already failed her once.

Sookie dabbed at her eyes. "She says she has Sky's knowledge, and we should clean up. She'll show you where the other two bombs are."

"Bombs?" Bill asked incredulously. "_She_ set the bombs?"

"She was recruited for the CIA, cut out the day she was supposed to take vows," Eric said.

"How did you know?" Alcide asked, jealous that she'd told Eric before him.

"I did a background check on her when I was trying to find her for you. Remember?" He kicked a piece of broken wood off of the steps. "She graduated top of her class. The same in veterinary school. That woman put her heart and soul into everything she did. It's no wonder 'there's magic in her'."

He looked at the wolf. "I don't understand this. I've never seen anything like it before. But knowing what I do about Sky, she is an exceptional human."

Carlos's voice came from above them. "All anyone ever noticed was how insecure she could be sometimes. Dropping things and stammering when she was nervous. She was the most down-to-Earth person I've ever met." He sat down on the steps, grimy and dirty. "She's dead, isn't she?" Tears streaked down his face.

"No," Eric said. "Not exactly. But she is gone, and probably won't be back for a long time." Carlos began to cry, and Eric continued, "I will see to it that your salary is paid in her absence. She will need you when she returns, I suspect."

Carlos muttered something that sounded a lot like, "thanks" through his hands and went back to crying.

Alcide felt a nudge on his hand. He found himself hugging the white wolf.

"She said that you can call her Avalon," Sookie told him.

"Sky would like that," Alcide said.

"I know," Sookie's chin trembled as she said it quietly. She walked past him, squeazing him gently on the shoulder as she went.

It was a week later that Alcide stood in her house, looking at the back yard where he had played frisbee with her and played chase and ran around. It was dotted with dandelions, and he smiled.

"It needs some weed killer," Sam told him.

"No. Sky would never forgive me if I killed her dandelions," Alcide told him. "She told me once when we were out here that dandelions are proof that God loves us. They can be eaten, used in poultices, and are generally very human-friendly. Good for the liver. She said that, despite our best efforts to kill them off, they always come back. And that has to be proof that God loves us."

"You believe in God?" Sam asked.

"I'm not sure. But I know that Sky loves them, and that's good enough for me. They'll be staying, because she would want that."

He looked down when Avalon walked out of the house and sat beside him. He smiled at her. "Avalon approves," he said.

Then he went back inside where the stones and marble for the fireplace were. He would build it for her with his own hands. When she came back—and he had to believe she would, or he wouldn't be able to go on—she would have her fireplace.

Bidding Sam good-bye and thanking him for helping him clean the place up, he sat down to look over the plans he'd drawn up, and consider where and how to begin.

When Eric came by that evening, he asked if Alcide wanted help. "No. I'll do it myself. With my own hands. I want it to mean something to her."

"Do you think it wouldn't if you had help?" Eric asked.

"I could pay someone else to do it, and she would love it still," Alcide answered. "But it's important to me to do it myself."

"Suit yourself," Eric replied. "Be watchful, though. Do not endanger Avalon by becoming too engrossed in your task."

"I will not," Alcide answered him. "I know the stakes, Eric."

"Right," Eric answered, and flitted away.

Alcide sighed. "They all think I'm crazy," he told Avalon. "They don't understand. Sky could buy anything she wanted. She bought this little house and made it cozy. The only thing she wanted that she didn't have was a fireplace. Anybody could buy her one, or even make her one. But... she'll understand why I had to do it by hand, I think." He patted her. "What do you think?" he asked.

She cocked her head sideways and sat up.

"Me too," he said, certain that was agreement. "Let's do it."

So he began that day to make her fireplace.

In the early morning hours came the first wave of demons. He'd never believed in demons before, but now he did. They wanted Avalon and they meant to get her. When it was over, he and Eric slumped on the sofa, the back yard covered in demon blood.

Showering, Alcide bathed Avalon, fearful that the blood would never come out of her fur. But she was white when she dried and he woke with her lying at his side.

In the back yard, the blood had killed all of the grass. All that remained were the dandelions. 'Proof that God loves us'. Not even the demons could destroy them. Choked up, Alcide touched one of the bright, cheerful yellow blossoms.

"Wherever you are, Sky, can you see the dandelions?" He looked up at the sky and smiled slightly. "They're still here."

And in the plane of Life where Sky lay curled and floating through the aether, she dreamed of Alcide fighting demons and wept. Where her tears fell, dandelions grew, though she never saw them. Instead, she dreamed as her body was slowly healed by the creatures, and even the souls of the humans she had saved.

As each soul came and blessed her, she healed a bit more. The dandelions bloomed, and closed and opened again, until the seeds of her compassion spread across the landscape of Life.

And she floated, and dreamed. She wept for those she had killed. She wept for their families. She wept for Alcide and for Eric and for Sam... even for Sookie, who fought beside them, Sky knew not why. Beyond her awareness, in the mortal plane, they fought and were wounded and they cried and they struggled and they felt pain. They knew the joy of triumph and the exhaustion of fleeing in defeat, only to regroup and recoup the next night.

Sky dreamed it and wept.

And when the day was upon the world and Alcide slept, she dreamed he visited her and they played in fields of dandelions that grew larger each dream until there were dandelions as far as the eye could see and they could dance and laugh and be free together without boundaries.

On the first full moon, Marrok ran with Avalon and they delighted in each other beneath a heavy, low, fecund moon that promised peace to the world. Sky wept at their beauty and their joy and where her tears fell, there sprang lotus blossoms that would bloom eternally in that place.

She drifted and she dreamed and sometimes the pain came. She cried out and begged that it cease but it went on, relentless and inevitable.

As he fought in the mortal plane, Alcide heard the echoes of her screams. But when the darkness closed over, and the night was at its blackest and the evil pressed in the worst, he heard her tears and felt her love. Some nights, the screamed fueled his rage. Other nights, her love led him back from the edge of the abyss.

"Do you ever feel her?" he asked Eric one night as they stood in the blood and gore of dead demons and wraiths.

"Never," Eric said. "But I remember her screams as she burned. They haunt me."

Alcide didn't ask how a vampire could be haunted by screams. The words did not need to be said between them.

"Sometimes I hear them still," Alcide told him. "Like she's out there, hurting. All alone in the darkness."

"I do not know where she is, or what she is experiencing," Eric told him. "But I know that even with vampire blood, recovering from burns is excruciating. I do not wish that upon her."

"Sometimes when I hear her, I think I made a terrible mistake," Alcide finally said, leaning on the window sill of the broken window Eric had thrown a demon out of. "So much pain just because I couldn't let her go. So much suffering when she didn't want to live."

"If you need someone to blame, blame Avalon," Eric told him. "Without her, Sky would be dead, just like you want her to be."

"I don't want her to be dead," Alcide snapped at him. "I just know that she's hurting and I hate it!"

"Watching someone you love suffer is painful," Sookie said from behind them. "But sometimes it's necessary." She pointed at Avalon. "She said that."

"How much longer?" Sam asked, coming back from the bathroom where he stashed his clothes for the transformation.

Sookie looked at Avalon. "She says a month, maybe. The healing is almost complete but she is not prepared for the transition yet. She is weak and too much of the dark blood remains in her."

"I will not be able to feel her when she returns?" Eric asked.

Avalon walked over to him, and he knelt down in front of her. She reached out and touched his cheek with her nose, as if in a kiss.

A tear fell down Sookie's cheek. "She says that if you had not fought the darkness so long and so well, Sky would not have been able to go to the plane of Life. She says that you should not hate yourself for making her transition harder, when only the purity of your heart in the face of darkness allowed her to pass over at all."

Then Avalon looked at Alcide, and he felt something dark pass over him, like a cloud across the sun.

"She says you have not forgiven yourself. Without it, Sky cannot return."

Alcide turned away. "How can I forgive myself? I got her into all of this. I nearly killed her twice. I wasn't there for her."

Avalon's head pressed under his hand, and he dug his fingers into her fur.

"You must, Alcide. If you do not, you will push her away again to punish yourself, and all that will do is punish her, instead."

Alcide glared at Avalon.

"Actually," Sookie told him, "that one was me."

"How do you forgive the unforgivable?" he asked her. He walked out into the darkness and realized that it would be a full moon the next night.

He had never even told her that he loved her.

He heard doors opening and closing and knew that the others had gone home. Ghostly in the darkness, Avalon sat beside him on the porch. She tilted her head back and howled at the moon. A second later, he let his own head fall back and joined her.

Discarding his clothes on the steps, he stripped. Marrok ran across the dandelion covered back yard in the wake of the white wolf that held Sky's soul anchored to the mortal plane.

In her cocoon of Life, Sky wept with joy once more.


	17. It Was a Lifetime Ago

**17. It Was a Lifetime Ago**

"It is time," she heard, as if from a distance. "He is ready for you."

Golden eyes floated in front of her. Sky reached for them. "I never got to know you," she whispered, inexplicably saddened.

"Not in this life," the golden eyes answered. "Are you ready? It will hurt."

"I guess," Sky answered. "Ready for what?"

"To go back. To return to Alcide-Marrok, and all that goes with that," answered the golden eyes.

"Yes," Sky answered. It seemed like kind of a silly question.

"They are expecting you," came the disembodied voice as pain sheered across her skin suddenly.

She felt like she was being stretched, ripped, and twisted. She screamed as she was hurtled through space and across time and landed inside-out on something cold and hard.

She woke up screaming and flailing on the cold tile floor of the dungeon. People stood around her and the first thing she noticed was that she had legs again and they didn't hurt. Then she realized she was naked.

Eric said, "Alcide, you dog!" and her eyes met Alcide's shocked brown ones.

"I'm naked," she said, confused. "Why am I naked?"

She looked down and gasped, scrambling to her feet and backing up as if she could get away from... from the belly that protruded from her and followed her everywhere she went. The baby inside leaped and she ran into someone.

"How did I get pregnant?" she demanded in a near shriek.

Someone snickered and Alcide's coat wrapped around her. She glared at Sookie, who was trying to cover her mouth and quit giggling.

"Welcome back," the blond said.

Alcide pulled her against him and she realized something else. The building was fixed.

She frowned. "What happened? Why am I here? I was burned..."

Her eyes met Alcide's again.

"She told us you would be confused. That no time at all would have passed for you. It's been seven months since you were burned, Sky." He was holding her so tightly against him that it almost hurt.

"Sev- She who? I don't understand." Sky realized she was being whiny and stupid, but she just couldn't get her mind around lying on the floor dying one minute and then the next being naked and pregnant and the whole world being different.

"I love you, Sky," Alcide said, turning her face to his. "I love you and everything's going to be okay." He kissed her on the forehead. "I missed you so much."

"But I was just here a minute ago!" she protested. She felt the baby move again and confusion and fear warred in her.

"You didn't want children," she said, pulling away from him. "I wasn't sure until we went to Memphis. I was going to tell you-"

He laid his finger on her lips. "I know it's only been about a minute for you, Sky. But I spent seven long months without you while you healed. There were so many times when I thought I'd never see you again, much less ever get to hold you, and I never dared dream I would hold our babies. I thought being a werewolf was a curse until I met you. Our baby's going to be the luckiest kid alive with you for a mom."

Vaguely, Sky realized they were now alone in the basement. The others had left them to talk, and she stepped back to look at the protruding stomach. "How can that be?" she ran her hand across her belly. "I was just here. I was dying..."

"You were saved by a wolf. Wherever they wait to come to Earth to be with their human counterparts. She came, and she held your place in this world while you healed in hers." He ran a finger down her cheek. "Just as you gave your life up to save them, they came to save you."

"She asked me if I was ready, and I said I was ready, but I'm not ready!" Panic welled up in her. "I meant to tell you. I-"

He kissed her. It was no gentle, sweet kiss, either. It was the deep kiss of a man long deprived. It was the kiss of a man who had spent seven months missing her and longing for her and believing he had lost her. He stopped then, laying his forehead against hers.

"Come with me," he told her. "I forgot to bring you any clothes. I didn't think that you'd be naked when you came back."

He picked her up and carried her from the dungeon and out the front door, keeping her tightly wrapped in his coat. She realized that she had missed summer. She laid her head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. It was like gentle thunder and she treasured it.

He put in the front seat of a work van and she chuckled. "At least it's not a rental car," she said as he got in and fired up the engine.

He smiled at her and tweaked her chin before turning to back out. They drove for a bit and she was surprised when they pulled up in front of her house. The first one, the one she'd wanted to put a fireplace in.

And as if the thought of a fire place conjured it, she smelled burning wood in the air and sighed. Now she had a child on the way and she wouldn't have time to fuss with things like fireplaces. Her hand went back to her stomach. She'd only had a few days to come to terms with the idea and now she was due probably very soon.

She was picked up and taken into the house. "I... I don't think anything will fit me anymore," she said.

"I'll get you a robe," he said. "Why don't you sit down in the living room?"

"Okay," she agreed, and started in, glad that he had thought to leave the fake fireplace burning for her. The house was toasty and she was pleased. As she rounded the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. It wasn't the fake fireplace at all.

A real fire roared in a real fireplace made of exquisite gray marble and stone. Sitting on top of it was a tiny black box and her heart fluttered. She walked over to reach up and take it down. She turned to see Marrok sitting beside the sofa, staring at her.

She opened the box, her heart pounding. Inside it nestled a small engagement ring.

Marrok shimmered and Alcide walked up to her, naked and gleaming in the light from the fire. "Will you marry us?" he asked, clarifying, "Marrok and me?"

"You're not angry that I'm pregnant?" A tear tracked down her cheek.

"I think I had at least a little something to do with that," he told her with a smile.

"But I pressured you-"

He took the ring out of the box and sat the box down. "I didn't do anything I hadn't been wanting to do since before you even knew what I was, Sky. I'm not sorry you talked me into the best night of my life."

He slid the ring onto her finger, where it dangled slightly. "I didn't know your size," he apologized. "So will you?"

"Of course," she said, the tears flowing freely now.

On another plane, Marrok laid down beside his mate, the portal between worlds now held open by the woman who had changed everything for him. He reached over and licked her cheek, and she nipped playfully at his leg. She had not gotten to come with them this time, and she had missed her beloved.

But it had all been worth it.

Alcide and Sky made their way to the bedroom while Marrok and Avalon ran through fields of dandelions and lotus blossoms under a full moon on the Plane of Life.


End file.
